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Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 17:50:10
-0800 Hi to all on the Biological Beekeeping List John wrote: Reply: Well John, we feed honey, pollen and propolis back to the bees as necessary. Always have and always will as we don't believe in artificial food for their diet. Some pointers on how we do it and why! First of all we don't boil
honey or over heat it. That destroys all the When we feed pollen we grind it first in a coffee grinder if fed as a powder in feeder packets. For stimulative feeding for brood rearing we just mix collected pollen grains and granulated honey and make pollen/honey patties that are placed on waxed paper over the cluster/broodnest for the bees to eat in early spring. When we feed honey (while bees have ample pollen stores in their combs) it is done in two different ways depending upon what you want to accomplish. If you want to maintain the cluster for business as normal, you feed the honey granulated in paper packets (envelops make of light manilla heavy paper like file folders are made of) that are positioned like frames right over the cluster/brood area for the bees to eat. They will take it up just like a normal frame of honey and at the same pace. This works good for small forces needing help also. Now if strong enough, the paper packets can be filled and placed on the immediate side of the clustered/brood area for the bees to work on. Now NOTE: To start the bees working the granulated honey positioned over them or immediately on the their side take a knife and make some pencil hole size clean cuts to expose the honey to the bees to get to. They will then take it from there. Normally a filled paper packet will fit in the same space as a normal frame and hold the same amount of honey as a well capped frame of honey. Now, you can feed honey another way, but it will work differently and consumption will be much heavier, and also once started, you cannot switch! When you feed liquid honey, that after heating to liquify, and it has been cooled to gain stiffness for workability, it is normally placed over the brood nest only if in paper packets (can still be fed like normal in poly feeders with screen ladders so the bees don't drown) with two pencil small holes for a trickly effect as droplets that the bees will take up quite quickly until emptied and restored/used. Now liquid honey with ample pollen stores on hand will trigger broodrearing early in the spring and once triggered then feeding must continue, there is normally no turning back. With bees being carried with no pollen stores in the frames then pollen packets also need to be fed at the same time if brood rearing is wanted, but normally it takes both pollen and honey on hand to trigger brooding up. Of course if you don't want the mess of both liquid honey and pollen feeding in packets then the quickest way is like already mentioned above. The use of granulated honey/pollen patties. Finally, when feeding this way, check your bees on a 4 week rotation inspection program so you know what they are doing. Lastly, concerning AFB/EFB. While many extract and sell honey from such hives, you do not feed it back to bees knowingly unless you want them to get sick. So if your own honey is safe and only you would know that, Then use it. As for store bought honey, check and make sure it has been paper filtered by a commercial packer. If not, then that is your discression! But the best way not to feed, is not to over rob your bees, and in biological beekeeping you will find you will need to leave plenty of stores of both pollen and honey. You take care of your bee's stores first, before you take it for yourself, even if it means giving them more room for storage up front. Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby |