> Does anyone have recommendations for making your own pollen patties?
> Ratio of: Brewer's yeast, soy flour and dried milk?
Karl do bees eat dried milk, and you did mention 'pollen' patties but I
see
no pollen in your mixture of yeast soy flour and dried milk so you're
really
talking about 'pollen substitute patties'.
I never had any luck with this stuff.
Michael Bush has a web page that covers a lot to do with feeding. You
might
read that first:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm
Mann Lake Ltd. sells a pollen substitute I think it contains brewers yeast
Here's some recipes if you want to try a pollen substitute:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping/Recipes_for_the_Bees
Here's what I know about bees and pollen: Bees don't just eat pollen it is
processed as it were with a lot of bacteria and yeast rather like
sourdough
bread then stored in the cells. Since feeding bees pollen that was trapped
earlier and fed to them later, lots of risk are incurred, the most
im****tant
is how the pollen was dried when it was collected. If that was OK, then
and
you feed the bees a 'pollen patty' mixed with honey or just a tray of
pollen
say early in the Spring to increase buildup, they may not be able to
process the pollen in a way that is nutritious to them and all you will
cause is dysentery and possible colony collapse.
The best thing is to let the bees do their own management without
interference from you the beekeeper. I know there are mountains of written
material on the subject of bee management but if you live in an area of
abundant pollen and nectar and free of agribusiness poisons, you don't
have
to do very much to keep bees other than leaving them a generous supply of
the stores they put up during the season.
Remember too, not all areas are suitable for keeping bees and all the
extra
feeding and dithering over them will not change this.
--
CK
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