question about brood and pollen stores

[windfall]

How long can a frame or 2 of open brood with it's nurse bees go without pollen stores? sugar yes but no stored pollen?

I finally got weather and time this weekend to really get into my 3 hives again.
My plan was to make 1 or 2, 5-6 frame splits with the queens (cut down), and stock a 3 Ob hive without a queen and watch them make one, along with some other chores.

Things did not go according to plan....some mess, some very angry bees, less time than I thought free....

I did get the Ob hive stocked, but the frames I choose were in a rush. Now that they are settled I see that I got a frame of pure capped syrup, and 2 frames of brood at mixed stages some capped mostly young/eggs. And the QUEEN. But absolutely no stored pollen. There is plenty in all the hives, and I thought there was some in these frames just covered in bees...but no.

Tomorrow I will get things done right, and the queen will get into a proper nuc split from the hive she came out of, and a better balance of combs will go into the Ob hive. But will the brood suffer over that short a time without access to protein?

[Vance G]

High quality pollen sub will help extend the pollen.  They still benefit from it anytime during buildup.  Once they seem to quit taking it, it is easy to quit feeding it.  I just keep it available.  It is not like it will get stored in honey supers.

[BlueBee]

Theoretically, it would seem like a complete lack of pollen would be detrimental to the health of the open brood.  I have certainly made splits that were low on pollen and didn't observe a big problem, but then I probably wouldn't have noticed anything unless there was a pile of dead grubs on my landing board.  I probably wouldn't worry about missing a day of protein, but honestly I don't know.  Maybe bees are like humans and can go for a while without protein.   I believe others have reported that bees will cannibalize brood under some circumstances.  Maybe that is what they do if they are really short on protein.

Things didn't go according to plan

LOL.  They never do!

[Finski]

.
If the colony does not get pollen, they eate larvae.

Only way is that you take from bigger hive a pollen frame.

[windfall]

Thanks folks,

Last night as I watched the OB hive. I did notice a small scattering of pollen cells in the brood frames. So they are not completely without. I was not worried so much as curious. Given how fast the larva develop a day without protein seemed potentially significant.

I thought of pollen sub, but I don't have any and today I should have time to do things over and hopefully do a better job of it...that's the new plan anyway. At least I don't have to worry about finding the queen this time.