Mineral salt

[gaucho10]

On the subject of mineral sals to feed your bees, for those of you who do in patty form, what is mineral salt and where do you get it?  A woman at a health store was shoming me some crystal salt which is a form of sea salt.  I also went to a supply store which sells farm animal equipment and feed and I found "licking" salt bar with minerals.  Is that the right stuff?

[poka-bee]

I don't know but I would get the salt lick from the feedstore, the health food store will be very expensive. You will probably have to keep it dampened?  Bees usually find what they need from many places, mud puddles, ponds,animal pee..mine love the slurry from our granite work :-P.  this is also dependant on where you live.  Hubby isn't happy either when they converge!!  :roll: Jody

[bassman1977]

I've never heard of mineral salts being used for bees.  What's this all about?

[octagon]

I've never heard of mineral salts being used for bees.  What's this all about?

it is used in the recipe for grease patties to help control tracheal mites
1 and 1/2 pound of solid crisco- veg shorting
4 pounds of granulated sugar
1/2 pound of honey
1/3 cup mineral salt- the kind sold at farm stores for cattle, crush it fine like reg salt in a blender or grinder
mix all together til smooth and put a patty on top of the frame so the bees can get at it. keep the extra in the freezer

[CBEE]

That's interesting , I have not heard of using it even in grease patties

[jimmy]

I bought a small maybe 2# block at the feed store .It is reddish brown .Just chip a little off the block ,crush best you can the put in blender.
The forumla is in the book Bees for Dummies.

[Brian D. Bray]

I bought a small maybe 2# block at the feed store .It is reddish brown .Just chip a little off the block ,crush best you can the put in blender.
The forumla is in the book Bees for Dummies.

There is a good number of things in Beekeeping for Dummies that I would not recommend doing or using.  Remember that is just one person's view of what should be done, there are thousands of other views not in print.  I'm 60 years old and have been a beekeeper for 50 and I've seen a lot of things tried, most failed, but somewhere along the line dumb ideas still get repeated and recommended.

There are still plenty of beekeepers who recommend cutting out queen cells when it is possible the queen as already left the hive by the time the cells are noticed by the beekeeper.  The queen cells don't even have to be capped for the old queen to swarm.  So you have newbees coming up with queenless hives after following incorrect information that's repeated as gospel.

[gaucho10]

jimmy, I have returned to the feed store and purchased the reddish-brown block of salt and it is deffinitely cheaper than the health food store for the sea salt.  But then again a container of sea salt at the local suppermarket is cheaper also.  The feed store manager also told me that she had sold those blocks of salt to beekeepers before, so it must be the right stuff (assuming).  The info in "Beekeeping for Dummies is not the only place I have found for the grease patties using salt.  I also found another place on the internet with a slightly different formula as mentioned by Octagon.

[qa33010]

   I just leave the block out.  Bees and critters have been seen on the blocks.  I bought them for the critters but read something about bees will collect minerals as they need them.

[Two Bees]

I don't think I would try to use any form of salt.  As someone has already mentioned, bees get what little salt they need from natural sources. 

NC State's extensive research into bees and agriculture has found that salt can actually be used as a "pesticide" for ants or other undesirable insects.   Their research stresses that salt can kill your bees in the same way.