Pollen Substitute

[Stuart]

I was recently experimenting with pollen substitute and I thought I’d share what I did and found. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this for over a year and have finally gotten around to it. In mid Sept I noticed that one of my nucs had plenty of stored honey but was very low on pollen and there were almost no larvae. Assuming pollen was the limiting factor, I wanted to see if feeding pollen substitute would remedy that.

As for the pollen substitute, I followed Randy Oliver’s recipe to make a rather thick mixture. I’d call it a little thicker than play-doh. I rolled out two golf ball sized chunks, as thin as I could, between sheets of wax paper. Then I rolled the two discs on either side of some nylon window screen. I stapled the screen to an ~1/8” wide bar then added another ~1/8” wide bar, to maintain bee space over the comb, and installed it within the brood area. Below are a couple of pictures to help explain.

Rolling.JPG putting on screen.JPG stapling.JPG installing1.JPG

Here’s what it looked like after a week. The nuc had also tripled its brood area.

after 1 week.JPG

Oh, here’s one more pic (not a very good one though). Since I wanted to see what the bees thought of it I installed a small amount in my observation hive. Since I didn’t really want to open the hive I just slid it in under the edge of an empty bar. The bees liked it but, after two weeks and as you would expect, the side against the hive wall was full of SHBs larvae.

polsubglass.jpg

Stuart

[shannonswyatt]

Hmm, so the hanging patties didn't have problems with SHB? Cool!

Were did you get those clear bars from? That looks neat.

[Stuart]

No SHBs. That was the idea. If the bees can get to all sides of the pollen substitute then they'll keep the beetles out (hopefully).

Those are acrylic bars that I made for my observation hive. Once I started making nucs, bars seem to get mixed up everywhere.

[shannonswyatt]

Once I started making nucs bars seem to get mixed up everywhere.

Isn't that the truth. I used to wonder why the experienced beeks seemed to have a hodge podge of gear. It didn't take me long to figure that out!

[BEES4U]

That's a nice method for feeding pollen sub to TBH and it could be modified for feeding nucs withLangstroth frames.
Thanks for posting.

[efaure]

Could you post the exact recipe you used? It looks like it was made small batch, i.e. with a Kitchenaid versus a cement mixer. Nice pictures and it looks like it was a total success! Thanks...

[Stuart]

efaure,

Sure, I was just guessing at what might fit in the mixer and it barely made it. I simply made a 1/25th version of Randy's recipe posted http://scientificbeekeeping.com/poll...ement-formula/. He asks folks not to post his recipe so they'll get any of the latest updates/improvements to his formula.

A few of the items were hard to locate. I found the protein isolate at GNC (but it was hard to find unflavored). I couldn’t locate any dried egg yolk so I simply fired up a couple of dozen and dehydrated them (use foil, not wax paper in your dehydrator). I don’t remember where I found the honey bee health recipe (somewhere around here) and I got the brewer’s yeast from http://www.joshsfrogs.com/. Oh, Randy mentions his source for brewers yeast and there's no need to call Pat Heitkam for some because he doesn’t ship it (I think he's somewhere around Chico, CA).

Yes, I think it did what I hoped it'd do.. help my nuc set up for winter. I do hope they can store more of the pollen coming in now because it's not very plentiful in mine, and many folks, hives around here. Also, I'd much rather give natural pollen, which again I've been thinking about but have not gotten around to harvesting it.

Good luck,
Stuart

[Stuart]

oops, double posted and I dont know how to delete it...maybe ill find it later...

[Mbeck]

Cool idea

[shannonswyatt]

You had me until you got to the dehydrating the eggs. Also the bees would just be someone else complaining about how I cook.

[Hoosier]

QUESTION:
How would it be if I were to attach 1/2-inch hardware cloth w/thumbtacks on one side of a wooden follow board to hold up two or three pollen strips that I bought at a bee supply store?
I'd probably have to put a 1/4-inch spacer between the last comb and the the follow board... (?)

[Stuart]

Hoosier - I’m not sure but all of the recommendations I’ve read say place the pollen patties “above the brood.” Since above isn’t convenient to TBHs, adjacent is what I’m trying to accomplish. I don’t use a follower board but, if I had to guess, due to the fact that my bees don’t spend much time in the back of the hives, I would anticipate that SHB would get to mine. Then again, the strip I put in the glass hive was about three bars behind my last comb and the larvae only seemed to be on the glass side. Also, if beetles aren’t much of an issue in your area it might be fine.

Please let us know if you give it a try.

Shannonswyatt – funny… please let up know if you find another source.

[EastSideBuzz]

You had me until you got to the dehydrating the eggs. Also the bees would just be someone else complaining about how I cook.

Over easy I would assume.

[Bush_84]

This method would also seemingly work quite well for late winter/early spring fondant feeding. Right up to the cluster.

[efaure]

Hay Stuart!
Thanks a million!
Good luck to you and your girls this winter!
Thanks again!