From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 07:35:11 -0800
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Sugar and wintering

Chris writes:
> On the other hand Amm (a very variable sub species) has much of its range in
> the forests of Russia where the winters are 6 months long and (I am guessing
> here) much of their stores will be high protein honeydew.
>
> So the definitive answer is Don't know.

Reply:
I am told that in US government experiments on overwintering (5 yr
experiment) with packed, artificially heated, and normal overwintering
colonies, that it was the pollen stores that gave the edge to the bees in
overwintering well! Pollen in high protein too. Feral bees store more pollen
then current overly large domestic bees also. So should maybe more northern
beekeepers be wanting smaller cells to enable the bees to store more protein
for overwintering in these marginal areas?

Just a thought for you Chris and others to think about.

Regards,

Dee