Unlimited pollen

[limyw]

Lately I tried to locate a few hives to pitaya farm (cactus family) and suprisingly found hives grow very fast, from 5 to 10 comb only took 3 weeks. All girls are oversized  :-D. The bad news is there is no nectar, but with plenty of pollen surplus. Grand flower wave last for 1 week, after that slowly decrease and totally stop for a week and come back again. The whole cycle takes 3 weeks and almost no stop.

Since there is no nectar and the only way to sustain the hive is through syrup feeding, so should I go for pollen, royal jelly or propolis production? And based on the above scenerio is my plan viable?

Would syrup caused quality of the royal jelly and propolis deteriorate?

I try to post the plant's photo but don't know the way to do it. Anybody can advise?

[Scadsobees]

Propolis is actually sticky tree or plant sap (mostly) so that shouldn't matter.

I can't comment much on royal jelly, other than that the main important components are secretions from the younger bees in the hive, and it might have a little less value from certain plant esters, but I can't imagine that it would make much difference, since everything in royal jelly is bee-processed through their glands (I think).  Not to the point that sugar syrup does on honey, that is for sure.

Are and have you been feeding them?  Or are you concerned that you will need to feed them?

Rick

[Mici]

this "grand flowers" must be a source of nectar to, if there were insufficient ammounts of nectar, bees wouldn't build up so fast.

[tig]

it's good to know dragon fruit {pitaya} is a strong source of pollen.

[empilolo]

from Wiki

The pitaya only flowers at night; they are large white flowers that are often called Moonflower or Queen of the Night.

can somebody comment ?

[tig]

The flowers of dragon fruits name as " moonflower", "Queen of the night". It is a night blooming flower. The flower is large with waxy and white petals. It can produce fragrance as it blooms, attracting bees and ants as pollinating agents.

Even Pitaya is a self pollination plants. However if there are pollination agents like bees, ants and others help during the pollination process, the success rates will increase. Result shows that with hand pollination (human help), the fruit set rate increase tremendously with fruit sizes increase too

* i copied that directly from this site.  here's the link to the site

http://ilovepitaya.com/flowingzz.htm

[limyw]

Yes, pitaya's flower broom during midnite, somewhere after 10pm but its last untill the next day morning 10am, sometime up to 12 noon if the temp is cold. So, bees have 4-5 hours to collect pollen as much as possible.

Of course, to make bees alive in pitaya farm, feeding is a must. This means you can produce any products except honey. If productivity is ok and able to cover feeding cost, I think it is a great yard for beekeeping.