Folks,

Someone, I recall, had raised a concern a while back that one of the
grossly neglected areas in hobby-beekeeping was the lack of *spring
priming* with pollen supplement and light syrup.  In the absence of real
pollen, I am now trying to try brewer’s yeast for my forty colonies,
having tried the premix sold by a bee supplier, which worked OK.  However,
I could not locate a good place to buy brewer’s yeast *in bulk.*  Lots of
different stores do sell brewer’s yeast but all in small bottles for many
domestic use.

How do you commercial beekeepers go about getting it in bulk?  The archive
did not help me much, especially for the area where I live.  Was it any
better/worse than the typical soy flour/dry skim milk/brewer's yeast mix?
The premixed formula from a bee supplier worked all right, but I feel I am
paying too much for the packing.  Also, since I did not have any
controlled group experiment, I could not tell the efficacy of feeding
pollen supplement—-although I tend to agree with its alleged outcome.

In the meantime, I am feeding the leftover premix from last year, hoping
that it still retains its nutrients, knowing that bees will get anything
mixed with enough sugar.


from the People's Republic of Oklahoma

Yoon