i am about to order pollen patties. so far, Mann Lake seems to have the best deal on price and shipping to my area. they also have quite a selection! i am leaning toward the 4% pollen mix. it's less expensive and i have used it before. seemed to work well.
anyone have other recommendations or experiences?
i don't want to mess with mixing and have found the reconstituted mix to be less attractive to the bees anyway.
I used bee-pro from Mann Lake and the bees ate it up. I freeze any unused portions w/ no prob. I used about 1/2 patty per hive.
I use bee pro with like a 6% mixture of pollen with the bee pro patties I make. It seems to work just fine. I have seen them gobble it down in as quick as 1 week.
They make a patty that is 15%pollen Ask for that one-RDY-B
Mann Lake patties worked for me last year.
Kathy, I don't blame you for not wanting to mess with the pollen patty. It can be quite messy, but I have a blast doing it. I have revamped my pollen patty mixture. I used far less brewers yeast, substituting that for pollen. I get the irradiated pollen from my old bee course instructor, I know it is clean. I make about 12 (500 gram, just over a pound) patties and the time is pretty short. I keep my hands moistened when I roll the patty in my hand then press it inbetween two pieces of waxed paper. My bees love and I mean love these new style of pollen patties, I was very impressed, as I was experimenting with ratios of pollen to sugar syrup to brewers yeast. It turned out great. Anyways, rambling, about my stuff, as usual. I have 9 colonies still going strong (I can tell by the debris on the sticky board that I just took out the other day, it looks like they are covering the front half of between 6 to 9 frames, hee, haw. I know I am heading into the building up season full speed ahead with these girls, and it makes me happy). Have a wonderful and greatest of days. Cindi
I just took out the other day, it looks like they are covering the front half of between 6 to 9 frames, hee, haw. I know I am heading into the building up season full speed ahead with these girls, and it makes me happy). Have a wonderful and greatest of days. Cindi sounds like your on to somthing there :lol: try some powdered eggyolk in that there patty -its the hot ticket they tell me -seriously- ;) RDY-B
I'd just buy the straight pollen from Mann Lake and make some patties by mixing it with your honey or just feed it in an empty hive on the bottom board (tipped to run the water out, of course).
cindy, you are far more domestic than i :-).
one of the considerations is cost. looks like the pre-made patties will be cheaper, even with shipping, than buying separate ingredients or pollen. even the dry ends up being spendy when you buy in bulk because of the shipping weight.
thanks for all the info. i will get back on the mann lake page today!
you might want to check out a thread under Articles section posted by Understudy about a new food patty called "megabee".
Konasdad. I did an advanced search and found Brendhan's post. I'll check it out sometime, looked like it smelled great, like pollen, hee, hee. Have a great day. Cind
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=12672.0