MULTI-SEASONAL USE OF POLLEN SUBSTITUTE

In reviewing some of my back issues of Bee Culture Magazine, I came across the
April 2000 article by Dr. Jim Tew on feeding pollen substitute. That article prompted me
to write this follow-up.

When I inspected my eight hives on Jan. 5, 2000; I found that! had virtually no pollen in
any hive. There was no sign of any brood having been reared in weeks, no eggs and no
visible pollen being brought in. I closed up the hives and immediately called the
president of my beekeeping association and told him to check his hives and spread the
word to our other members to check for pollen stores.

I then made up the enclosed formula and fed it to my bees. The feeding that I gave
them started the queens to laying and a follow-up feeding of the same amount carried
them until the creek Alder began to bloom. While on the substitute, I have never seen
bees reproduce faster, even on natural pollen.

I later told Dr. Mike Hood at Clemson how it had worked, and gave him a copy of the
formula. At our S.C. state beekeepers meeting in July, I told Dr. Hood that I was going
to feed it again to my bees, (on location in the mountains for sourwood honey).

He asked the reason for my doing so and I reminded him of the fact that sourwood
does not produce enough pollen to maintain brood rearing and the bees will shut the
queen down with honey stored in the brood nest. He told me to let him know how I did
with the crop.

I mixed up a dishpan full of this formula that evening and put it in the refrigerator,
covered with waxed paper until the end of our bee meeting (around noon the next day)
and then picked up the substitute from home and off to the bee yard.

Note: This formula is one of the gummiest items you are likely to deaf with, so take along
a large "sopping wet" towel to clean up with; both between hives and when you are finished.
It looks like peanut batter when made up, but is much stickier. Transport the towel in a garbage bag.

Upon opening the hives, I found that my suspicions were true. The brood chambers
were virtually fall of honey. I only had one hive with two brood chambers; (the others
were singles) and the one with two had been shut down to two frames; each containing a
patch of brood the size of your hand. All the single brood chamber hives had a larger
amount of brood because they had more available super space, but none had brood in more than four combs.

I carried a roll of waxed paper to the bee yard with me and once the brood chambers
had been checked, I rolled off a sheet of paper about sixteen inches long and laid it on the
hive cover for the adjoining hive. Then using a hive tool, 1 smeared a patty of about a
pound in weight all over the sheet of waxed paper. This made an oval patty about 12 x
14 inches and about a half inch thick. Then the paper was picked up and inverted over
the frames in the brood chamber. The supers were replaced on top and an extra super

given to each hive in turn and the covers put on. All this was done on a Saturday
afternoon.

The following Wednesday morning, the hives were screened before dawn, stapled
together and moved about twenty miles to a location about eleven hundred feet higher in
altitude to attempt to make another crop. The unloading was finished by eight a.m. and
the screens were pulled. My friend, my son and I then went to a restaurant for a well-
earned cup of coffee. We returned to the bee yard and removed the honey that was ready
and were amazed at how much of the pollen substitute had been used. One hive had used
all but about one ounce and only two had patties of about five ounces. All the others had
about three ounces each.

We returned home and 1 spent the next day extracting the honey we had taken off and
getting the supers back on the truck. Next morning, I picked up my friend and we
returned to the bee yard. When we checked the brood chambers this time, we found only
one hive had any of the substitute left. It was a small pat of about one ounce.

The hive with two brood chambers (the top one was removed and extracted) had (in
six days) moved the honey up to the super we left with them and now had five frames of
brood almost to the end bars. This location has lots of wildflowers and corn growing in
nearby gardens and we were amazed that the bees had used the substitute to produce
brood and they had packed the inside of the second frame on each side of the hives with
natural pollen. In reviewing this, I told Dr. Hood when I called him that there were two
ways to look at the situation. One: The bees may not know how to store the substitute
vs. natural pollen. Two: The substitute may be equal to or preferable to natural pollen
under certain conditions and maybe what they consider an inferior quality pollen. What
they had stored was a reddish orange pollen and we could not find any of the field bees
gathering it while we were there.

All of this summer feeding during the SOURWOOD FLOW and follow-up in the
brood chambers covered a time span of only six days. Each time I used the substitute
was when the need for pollen was great. This covers the two feedings in January and the
large feeding in July.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I read the bee nutrition section in "The Hive and the
Honeybee" and I know that I am in the ballpark with a super pollen substitute. I read that
a lot of the nutrition studies had been shown to contain lethal formulas where the brood
died after a few days. This formula of mine definitely is not lethal and will turn on an
explosion of brood rearing when used.

Further testing of the recipe is needed and I want to make an addition of one teaspoon
of potassium nitrate to it and run a test of a small number of hives in the search for the
''ultimate" substitute. The reason for a small test is that the soy flour and dried milk
powder may contain all the potassium that is needed and I do not want to make the recipe
lethal to the brood when I know that I already have the best I have yet seen.

The advantage of my recipe is that all the ingredients can be procured in any town that
have a drugstore, a grocery store, and a health food store. Stirring the recipe is a bit
tedious but when done correctly and stored in the refrigerator overnight to cure and
stabilize the moisture throughout the batch, it can reverse a crisis in brood rearing.

Note: I used this formula again in February 2001 while we had a fall pollen flow in progress
(up to seven bees in a row loaded with pollen then a couple carrying nectar and the next ones carrying pollen).
Even in competition with spring pollen supplies, the result was the same; immediate use of the substitute
in brood-rearing began. There is one caution that I must stress, though and that is the absolute necessity
of monitoring honey or syrup stores. When on the substitute, there can be a virtual - overnight consumption
of all liquid stores.

The multi-season pollen substitute formula is:

FOUR CUPS SUGAR (carbohydrate)

TWO CUPS WATER

THREE CUPS EXPELLER PROCESS SOYBEAN FLOUR (protein)

ONE AND A HALF-CUP BREWERS YEAST (oxidizer & energizer)

TWO TEASPOONS SALT (SEA SALT OR MINERAL IS PREFERRED) (bees are
animals and animals need salt)

ONE-TEASPOON 'FRUIT FRESH' (vitamin C) (Found in canning and freezing section
at your grocery store)

SIX TABLESPOONS DRY MILK POWDER (Calcium & enzymes)
SIX ANTIOXIDENT VITAMINS (Available at any Drug store) (Gel caps)

MELT SUGAR IN WATER AND SET ASIDE TO COOL. THEN CUT OPEN
THE ANTI-OXIDANT GEL CAPS AND STIR THE CONTENTS INTO THE LIQUID.
THOROUGHLY BLEND THE DRY INGREDIENTS AND THEN ADD THE
COOLED SUGAR-WATER MIX TO THE BLEND AND STIR UNTIL A SOFT
DOUGH IS FORMED. (Like soft peanut butter)

DIVIDE THE DOUGH INTO DESIRED SIZE PORTIONS. I USE HAMBURGER
SIZE PATTIES IN WINTER FOR BUILD-UP. HOWEVER, WHEN YOU ARE
FORCING BEES TO MOVE HONEY OUT OF A BROODNEST WHEN ON A
HONEYFLOW SUCH AS IS OFTEN THE CASE WITH SOURWOOD; YOU NEED
TO PUT IN AT LEAST A ONE POUND PATTY DIRECTLY ON TOP OF THE
BROOD FRAMES. REPLACE THE SUPER THAT WAS ABOVE THE BROOD
CHAMBER TO ITS PLACE AND ADD AT LEAST TWO SUPERS OF EMPTY
COMBS ABOVE IT TO RECEIVE THE HONEY FROM THE BROOD NEST.

NOTE: Many times in the past, other beekeepers and I have made no Soul-wood Honey
crop to self, and yet the bees were brought out of the mountains heavier than they were taken
to the mountains. When they were returned to the home yard and available pollen, they
immediately began to build up their population for late summer using sourwood honey as
their energy source. Now; by feeding this substitute
approximately ten days into the honey flow and weekly thereafter; we have an opportunity to
force super storage vs. brood nest storage, which should let us salvage a crop where there was no
option before. I believe that this trick to the bees in year 2000 netted me around three hundred more
pounds of premium grade Sourwood honey from my eight hives.

RAYMOND E. CROCKER
2786 CANNONS CMP/GRND.RD
SPARTANBURG, S.C. 29307-2825
(864) 579-2652