Almonds,ready set go

[Keith Jarrett]

Are you ready for the almonds, by now, all mite treatments should be done and checked for levels.Now, it's the brood that is most important, Sept & Oct are very importants months for brood rearing.

Just some thoughts as we approach this time of year and look to Feb of next year in the almonds .

[Troy]

Keith,

I am a beekeeping hobbyist and it is probably not really possible for me to get my few hives to almonds anyway.... but I was curious about the timeline.

When do they need to be there and when can I have them back?

[Keith Jarrett]

>When do they need to be there and when can I have them back?


Feb 10----March 15 bloom time, plus trucking time,
in & out.

[FordGuy]

how is sept and oct important months for brood rearing? as long as they are packing pollen, and have plenty for immediate use now, how is the fall more important than any other time?

[Keith Jarrett]

FordGuy wrote,
>how is sept and oct important months for brood rearing?

Those are the two biggest hatch months for winter bees.

>as long as they are packing pollen,

What is rating (value) of that pollen? on a scale of 1---10

>and have plenty for immediate use now, how is the fall more important than any other time?

That is a good Question FG.

When you feed pollen sub while there is still a pollen flow, what you are doing is getting the hive to store more natural pollen.

What happens is they consume both, but will store the natural for later use. This also will very apon location, but will help hives in the winter months and fallowing spring.

[Chef Isaac]

Keith:

So do you advocate feeding pollen patties this time of year?

[Keith Jarrett]

Chef, your killing me

I have feed about 5,000 pounds so far and plan to feed about 40,000 by Jan 08.
Chef, hope this answers your question.

[bigbee]

Keith Jarrett: For all of us who only dream of going to the almonds. Would you give us an insite of your pollen pattie ingredients?

[JohnK and Sheri]

Hi Keith
Right you are! After last year's experience we are true believers!
We are a bit behind you, we start next week in earnest. But then, we are still pulling boxes, still have a flow on here, sort of. We have the ingredients, we have just been waiting for our Kushlan 150 to get here, ( it took 4 weeks! ), gonna pick it up tonight. Hoping it is everything you put it out to be.
I might want to pick your brain on modifications unless they are self evident once we play with it over the weekend. Still not sure how we will end up applying it, might make individual patties in the shop or might just take it by the totefull and divie it up in the yards like you do.
Sheri

[Sherpa1]

Sheri,
Are you mixing with a mortar mixer? Are the ingredients part of the "Tucson Diet"? Thanks.

[BerkeyDavid]

Hi Keith
Right you are! After last year's experience we are true believers!

Sheri

Sheri or other northern beeks:

Having just finished the Fat Bee article in the latest ABJ by Randy Oliver, who seriously promotes pollen patty feeding to get ready for the almonds, my big question is whether it hurts them to build up too strong to over winter if you are NOT going to almonds. I have been feeding pollen patties in the Spring.

But if I feed them now will they bee too strong (too large a cluster) to overwinter?

I can understand building them up now to take them to California but as we saw this year the late freezes can really hurt them if they start brood raising too early.

[JohnK and Sheri]

Sheri,
Are you mixing with a mortar mixer? Are the ingredients part of the "Tucson Diet"? Thanks.

Yes, we are using a mortar mixer. We are still experimenting, but it looks like it will work great.

There is a thread going on the Tucson bee diet I think, with a link to the patent. Our recipe is basically yeast, pollen and HFCS. If I am remembering correctly, the Tucson diet has egg protein and soy, plus vitamins, ingredients that are more soluble.
We have always thought a liquid supplement would be an easier, labor saving way to feed, we will wait and see how it works out and the eventual price of the product with labor taken into consideration. Pricing on "Megabee" will of course be one of the major factors determining if we decide to use it in the future.

Sheri or other northern beeks:

Having just finished the Fat Bee article in the latest ABJ by Randy Oliver, who seriously promotes pollen patty feeding to get ready for the almonds, my big question is whether it hurts them to build up too strong to over winter if you are NOT going to almonds. I have been feeding pollen patties in the Spring.

But if I feed them now will they bee too strong (too large a cluster) to overwinter?

I can understand building them up now to take them to California but as we saw this year the late freezes can really hurt them if they start brood raising too early.

I am no expert by any means but it would seem to me you would have to use common sense with this. The early frosts hurt because the clusters WERE too small. If you have a strain of bees that have those tiny winter clusters then early brood might be at risk. We run Italians and always want a big cluster. Either way, it stands to reason, the healthier the bees are going into winter the better off they will be come spring. When we overwintered here is Wisconsin, there would be brood in February, way before there was any natural pollen coming in but they usually had enough stored pollen to meet their needs. We are in an area that usually has pretty good spring thru fall pollen but last year, for instance, the fall flow was fairly non existent due to drought so they were very low on natural pollen going into winter. Feeding patties would have benifitted them even if they had wintered here but I would think one would want to do it earlier when they were still in brood rearing mode. I think feeding patties in the fall would allow them to store more natural pollen to hold them over winter and provide earlier pollen for early brood rearing.
We fed patties last November in California, hoping to stimulate renewed brood rearing, as they had already shut down here in Wisconsin prior to them being moved. We had results beyond our expectations. This year we are starting earlier to extend brood rearing, hopefully they keep that brood cycle going and stay big right into almonds.
Sheri

[greenbeekeeping]

As soon as I get the rest of the honey pulled the patties are going on here also. Let me know how that mixer works sheri.

[stangardener]

wouldn't it be easier to feed dry in outside feeders while the bees are flying?
or have you all found they take it better directly on the brood?

[Keith Jarrett]

< wouldn't it be easier to feed dry in outside feeders while the bees are flying?

Yes, you can ,but not a very effeicent way of feeding.

There are two kinds of lazy ways to feed pollen sub which arent that great,

dry or wet above the lid.

This is like feeding them a snack instead of dinner.

[Keith Jarrett]

Dry vs Wet pollen sub feeding

I see many talk about feeding dry.... easy, fast, no fuss no muss.


BUT..... how much stimulation to the hypopharyngeal glands do you think you will have?

How much brood production do you think you will create by feeding dry.... between the supers.... or on top of the lid, is there a differance?

And how much would one have to feed to make a real change in the production of brood and change the volumne of bees come spring?

Any thoughts on this ...

[JBJ]

I have a strong hunch that both inside and outside feeding simultaneously would provide the maximum benefit. The serious lbs provided by the inside brood area feeding can not be beat, however the actual act of foraging can be very stimulative to the hive, and this act may encourage a greater consumption of feed and brood rearing. There is something about a "flow", real or simulated, that seems to really stimulate he girls.

For protein feeding to make much of a difference a substantial percentage of their annual protein requirement would have to be fed. A pound or two for a hive that might annually naturally take in 65 to 75 lbs is such a small drop in the bucket it may not sway things much; of course there are some location specific variables.

[Troy]

I can't imagine feeding a wet pollen patty here in FL. The SHB would explode in that wet ball and make a huge mess in just a few days.

Other than to wait for cooler weather when the SHB is not too big a problem, what can I do?

[Nick Noyes]

The problem with dry feeding is that the bees usually won't touch it unless there is no natural pollen. By this time it is to late to do a lot of good.

We are putting pollen patties on right now and will continue into Oct. After that we sometimes put out dry spreaders to keep the bees busy during the warm afternoons. If they are not busy packing the beepro we put out they go and find the nearest feed pile (dairy,feedlot) and then we have problems.

I don't know if one could get away with putting a 1 lb. patty between the brood nest supers in Florida. The big hives do slick up a pound pretty fast. However I don't have any experience with SHB and hope not to in the near future.

[Keith Jarrett]

Now, that aussi bees may be blocked from U.S. entry, it may make pollen feeding the most important thing to do, for the up coming almonds pollination.