Does anybody have a recipe for pollen suplement for the bees, of the kind you'd use for queen production or when there is not much pollen around?
Such a recipe would contain:
yeast (not the dry kind)
soya flour
(+/- already gathered pollen)
fine sugar
honey
water
I had a recipe but I cannot find it , so is there anyone who has something like that?
Thanx,
Marina
From internet I learned that I can use soya flour and yeast with pollen. If you put over 20% pollen to mixture, it is palatable for bees.
I make dough with dough machine.
3 kg dry pollen
0,7 litre water to soften pollen over night
3 kg yeast
2 kg soya flour
1 kg heated honey (liguid)
1 kg flour sugar
___________________
10,7 total
28% pollen
If dough is too wet, add soya flour and balance the mixture with it.
Then I roll the paste between two dough paper to 5-8 mm plate and give it to the top bars of frame. During one week 2 super colony can eat 0,5-1 kg that dough. New born bees eat it very eargerly.
Near 20% pollen all colonies are not willing to eat dough.
Dough will be in condition at least 3 weeks in cold. The flour sugar add the content of sugar and stops yeast fermentation.
Finsky has posted this recipe in the past and from my experience using it, this is a winner. The bees really devour it.
Quote from: latebeeFinsky has posted this recipe in the past and from my experience using it, this is a winner. The bees really devour it.
Nice to hear it!
I have also learned that pollen pills have 30% honey, which bees mix with pollen in flowers.
Last weekend I tryed 20% pollen and the rest yeast. The sugar content of patty must be 40%. Yeast is not so good food like soya flour.
It worked quite well. Diddicult to say, because hives had very little brood area, about 4 x 4 inch.
Now I have changed honey to fructose, because american fould brood does not die with heating.
Fructose absorbs moisture from hive and keeps patty soft.