From: Micky Lee <mlee4321@juno.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 11:25:40 -0500
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: pollen/beebread marketing?

Dee queried,

>Micky,.....ever thought of chunking out pollen as a marketable product as
>beebread in healthfood stores?
>
>Bet if it was packaged right it would sell.

Reply,

The first year I kept bees, I set up a shallow box of foundation, an
excluder then round section suppers on that.

Then I dumped three small swarms on the ground in front. It took 5 supers
to hold them. I did this just as the black locust was beginning to
bloom.

In 10 days the top 4 supers were drawn filled and ready to cap.
Beautiful delicate comb.

The first super had an arch of beebread in it. The top of the sections
were drawn, filled and capped. below the cells were drawn ready for a
queen that could not get through the excluder. These cells had a yellow
stain or coloring compared to the pure white of the honey filled cells.
When the clover bloomed these cells were filled and capped

At that time I had no experience in marketing and virtually no customers.
I ended up eating a lot of bee bread.

Also about that time one of the magazines published an Abraham Lincoln
quote. He was a person who liked honey. It should be in the comb and
should contain beebread. I wish I could find that quote. If I remember
correctly it was in a letter to a friend. Exact wording? To whom was
the letter written?

It is not hard to get beebread in comb honey. I have seen comb honey in
the market with a cell or two of pollen. I would guess most grocery
store customers, would be very unhappy to find a hard hunk of packed
pollen in their mouth.

Beebread in the bottom box? I do not believe it could be successfully
marketed. Though I know one beekeeper that eats honey filled burr comb
that has been used to raise drones. Reused comb is not very palatable.

Micky