Soy Flour

[IndianaHoney]

I purchased some Pollen Sub from Kelley's. I believe this is nothing more than Soy flour. Will this work without brewer's yeast?

[BigDaddyDS]

Soy flour works just like Brewer's Yeast. They both provide the protein.

[tecumseh]

well if it is advertised as a substitute then it should contain several things besides soy flour. soy flour by itself will not contain the essential amino acids to meet MINIMUM levels of a honeybees dietary requirements.

I think brewer's yeast is a bit closer in composition to pollen... and would thereby be a much better substitute than soy flour.

why not forward your question directly to Kelley...

ps... I would first assume that Kelley acquires this product in a bag from someone else and they might not even truely know what is in each and every bag.

[IndianaHoney]

I asked them over the phone. They said that it works just like it is, in patty form, or even fed dry.

I tend not to trust the word of a large company.

This is the discription on the webpage:

A high-nutrient, heat treated soy flour. Feed dry or mix it with sugar syrup to form a soft patty. Pollen Substitutes supply a portion of the nutrients honeybees need to produce larval food when there is an inadequate supply of natural pollen available for colony building.

[RayMarler]

Indiana, you may like this file called Fat Bees Skinny Bees - A Manual on Honeybee Nutrition for Beekeepers...

http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/05-054sum.html

Click the link to download the full report as PDF file.

It is very informative report on nutrition of pollen and pollen subliments, among other things.