[Boxelder]

Hello All

My understanding is that feeding dry sugar via the Mountain Camp method will have no stimulatory effect on brood rearing. My question is: will feeding drivert via the Mountain Camp method result in increased brood rearing vs dry sugar?

For those of you wondering why I am already starting to think about stimulating brood rearing - i live in CA, so almond pollination is right around the corner.

Thanks

 

[msl]

In answer to the first question listed for this experiment, the amounts of brood
area (square inches) measured on three dates are summarized in table 1. Visual
observations January 8, five days after feeding drivert sugar with 1% pollen, indicated that the control treatment colonies
had not broken their bee clusters.
Bees in all treatments which had received the drivert sugar with 1% pollen had broken their clusters and were actively moving within the colonies.
Observations oi brood stages in all treatments indicated that the queen bees of the control colonies started laying eggs January 11, the day natural pollen became available in the area.
The queens in all other treatments started laying eggs January 3, the day they received the
drivert sugar with 1% pollen.

http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?type=pdf&article=ca.v022n07p2

 

[RayMarler]

Feeding pollen substitute helps to get bees brooding.

 

[Boxelder]

http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?type=pdf&article=ca.v022n07p2

Thankyou, that was an interesting article. It would have been more helpful if they had included a treatment that consisted of only pollen, with no added drivert, so then a comparison could be made to know if feeding driver had any impact on its own.

As it is, I am wondering if the bees were responding to the drivert, or if they were only responding to the included pollen?

 

[Saltybee]

My belief is either would stimulate, if and only if, the other was already in the hive in an adequate amount.