Yoon,

You can make your own.  All you need is a yeast packet (from a local
home-brew supply),  some powdered malt (corn sugar, cane sugar or fruit
juice will also work), a gallon jug, and an air lock (to prevent wild yeasts
from invading).

Mix the malt into a pot of hot water, bring to a boil, and let cool to
around 80 deg F.  "Pitch" the yeast into the malt, stir in with a sterilized
spoon, and pour into your sterilized gallon jug.  Give it a little shake to
aerate, and place the air lock on (with boiled water in it).  Make sure you
leave some head space in the jug(s) to allow for fermentation, and in about
two weeks you'll have a sizeable amount of yeast paste at the bottom.  It
may be easier to use a two gallon plastic pail (food grade) with lid to make
it easier to extract the yeast paste at the bottom.  Just punch a hole in
the plastic lid for the air lock.

You can keep increasing your supply of yeast by pouring off the liquid
(which is now bland beer), and adding fresh boiled/cooled malt (otherwise
known as wort).


Cheers,


Todd.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Humdinger" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:54 AM
Subject: [BEE-L] Sources for Brewer's Yeast?


> 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
>