Pollen trap question

[JMN]

My friend kept the pollen traps on all summer.  Still he couldn't get enough pollen to satisfy the demand.  Now most of those hives are dead.  There is plenty of honey in the hives but no bees.  We are talking about 50 some hives and only seven alive now.  He insist that it is NOT the pollen because they're able to haul in enough pollen past the trap to survive.  These 2 yards are about a mile and a half apart.

On a different yard about 30 miles away (where I have my hives too) he only had a few traps installed and every one of the hives are alive and happy (so far).

My question is: Can the bees survive the winter with the pollen traps on all summer?

Thanks, Joseph

[tig]

i would think the kind of pollen trap matters a lot.  some of those we have here are designed to trap almost 100% of the pollen entering the hive.  the ones i use trap 65%. and even with 35% entering the hive, i do not trap continously, in spite of a huge demand for pollen.

2 of my friends tried the 100% traps on 100 colonies.  they trapped every morning for 4 hours a day....continous for 3 weeks.  the volumn of pollen they got was huge and they had dollar signs on their eyes.  at the end of the 3rd week, all 100 colonies had collapsed from 20 framers to 6 or 7 frames and a lot of the queens had stopped laying. they ended up having to buy pollen from me to feed back to their bees.

if you wanted to go into pollen production, i would strongly recommend a weekly check on the pollen stores inside the colonies.  a quick look at the first and last frame on the brood box will give you an idea.

[Michael Bush]

>Can the bees survive the winter with the pollen traps on all summer?

I don't know.  In THEORY a sundance trap will let enough pollen through.  I like a 3/8" hole somewhere just to make sure some gets through all the time.

You know what Yogi Berra said?  "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."

[Brian D. Bray]

If using a pollen trap it is a good idea to remove it every 3rd week, that is on for 2 weeks, off for 1.  That allows the hive to get sufficient pollen for its brood and consumption needs.

[Dick Allen]

A couple of years ago I kept a couple of hives at at location about 45-50 miles up the road from Anchorage. The landowner wanted some pollen, so I put a bottom mounted Sundance trap on one of the hives for her and left it in place all summer. Every few days, she removed the collection drawer at the end of the day and took the pollen herself. At the end of the summer the hive next to it without a trap had a larger population of bees than the one with the trap in place all summer.

[KONASDAD]

I attended a seminar where the speaker did an experiment regarding feeding. As part of the experiment, one group of hives was "pollen" starved by using pollen traps. the pollen was then given to another group of hives to compare buildup on natural pollen vs patties vs. polen starved hives vs. control group having nothing done to it. All three groups were compared. The hives being deprived pollen by using traps had fewer bees, more health issues, slower buildup less honey etc.  The purpose of the experiment wasn't to determine if traps took too much pollen, but it does highlite that denying pollen from your hives w/ traps does have a negative impact on hive health.

[JMN]

Thankx to all for the inputs.
Joseph

[bassman1977]

Bee Culture also had an article regarding the pollen supply this year and the lack of nutritional values it contained.  It is thought that drought/extreamly dry weather had a lot to do with it and perhaps a contribution to CCD (and I assume a lot of other hive deaths as well).