beer and wine waste yeast in pollen patties

[Markalbob]

So, I see yeast is popular in pollen patties.....I brew at home anyway, and typically when you make beer, you you get at teh bottom of your 8-gallon bucket 1/2 inch or more of "trub" you rack off of.  Trub is settled yeast as well as any protein that settled out from the cold break when you boiled your wort "unfermented "pre-beer" as well as a bit of hop leaf.  Any reason to suspect this, mixed with sugar, wouldn't make an excellent pollen patty?

[Brian D. Bray]

This begs the question: Do or can bees become intoxicated?  Does flying while drunk reduce the production of a hive?  What happens if the queen becomes enhibreated? 

[AndersMNelson]

I am fairly convinced that bees can get drunk.  I saw an episode of Mythbusters where vodka was sprayed on bees as a potential bee-killer ( :'().  Fortunately, the bees survived and only showed what looked like signs of intoxication.  Rock on!

[Finsky]

So, I see yeast is popular in pollen patties.....I brew at home anyway,

We may bye yeast from storehouse 1 $/lbs. HOw much you have yeast in your can bottom?

[BEE C]

now thats my kind of go green save the planet recycling...reuse :mrgreen:I'd love to hear if anyone knows if this is possible.  I suspect there would be byproducts which would not be good.  Is active yeast ok to use in patties? I bought debittered brewers yeast for my patties, can other yeasts be used?  My mentor doesn't even use yeast in his recipe.  I know I should look for my copy of fat bees skinny bees, but I'm lazy.  Anyone?

[Cindi]

Steve, if your mentor doesn't use brewers yeast, what does he use?  Did he give you a recipe?  Cindi

[Mici]

i've been searching a lot lately about yeast. and so..i think it would be ok to use "waste" yeast. this "waste" yeast is dead, but, it's still rich in proteins and since you take it out relatively soon it should be still rich in vitamins..that's it. i persume this, since i found on some "bio" page that you can buy nutritient yeast-dead dry yeast...forgot why exactly it's better than normal but...
also, i could be wrong  :)
fat vs. skiny

[BEE C]

cindi,
my mentor is ron.  He told me I don't need to use brewers yeast if I am using pollen for patties.  He said he didn't use breweres yeast for this last batch of patties he made up.  Thats why I was curious, because I didn't write down his recipe from class, and the textbook we got lists brewers yeast as a pollen substitute ingredient.  I guess my question is, is there any benefit to adding breweres yeast to pollen based patties?  Ron gets a mischievous grin and says he is going to hold a seminar later on how to make up pollen patties with his secret recipe.  Hes such a joker at times.  I got the impression from ron that there is no benefit to adding BY to pollen based patties.  Just wondering what people here thought.  If I don't have to use brewers yeast it saves me money, ron has 1000 plus hives so the luxury of extra ingredients isn't really econonmically viable.  I would be really interested to know if people on here have recipes that they love and swear by, and what those recipes were? Guess its poll time.

[Michael Bush]

Pollen is the best.  Everything else is an attempt to match the nutrition of pollen.

Brewers yeast is a source of protien that is close to what pollen has.  Since my bees are often collecting grain dust from the chicken feed or the horse feed, I can't say that it's a bad idea to put out something more nutritious, like yeast.

[Cindi]

Steve, OK got new information now.  The pollen that bees eat that they have gathered is honey/pollen.  That is the natural way.

We add brewers yeast, along with pollen when making the patties.  Maybe it is not necessary at all, but it certainly cannot hurt for sure.

I need to get more information too.  I am wondering if the pollen patty would not be strong enough consistency if it did not contain brewers yeast and fall down between the frames, to the ground or on the solid bottom board if one is using that.  I know the wax paper the patty is between holds it in place to some degree.  But maybe pollen and the syrup can be made really stiff as well. 

On an agenda to gather information.  Great day.  Cindi

[BEE C]

cindi,
I went back and looked at the Australian beekeeping nutritional manual that Finsky had posted a while back (Fat bees, Skinny bees).  The manual is a really great, and lengthy document that answered my questions.  Brewers yeast adds b complex vitamins, especially good if the pollen has degraded a bit.  I'm going to make some patties up tonight.  I am going to add brewers yeast because I picked up a few small bags of it, and might as well use it.  I was thinking of adding more pollen and less brewers yeast to the receipe you posted earlier.  Having never made my own patties before I didn't really think about whether the pollen would condense and stick together enough.  I bought some wax paper and worse come to worse I'll lay it on top of the frames and add the mixture.  I guess if I alter the water content I could get a mix that will work?  The FBSB document had pictures of raw mixtures being fed bulk.  Interesting notes on soy flour as a bulk supplement.  Anyway i'm off to mix up patties.  Steve.

[Michael Bush]

You can make just pollen and honey into patties and it works fine.  You need to press any patties between waxed paper and they should be thick enough to hold together.  Add more pollen if it's too thin.  Add more honey if it isn't stuck together.

[Brian D. Bray]

pollen + honey = bee bread

Feeding a mixture of pollen substitute mixed with honey works the same just not as well.

[Markalbob]

hi,

So here's another question--if I had enough pollen, yeast may be something of a nonissue.  I see lots on irradiated pollen, other stuff seems to imply folks don't bother--does anyone make patties without irradiating, just using pollen collected frompollen traps?  Do you have AFB problems?

Mark

[Michael Bush]

>does anyone make patties without irradiating, just using pollen collected from pollen traps?

Yes.

>  Do you have AFB problems?

Never.

[Finsky]

Brewers yeast adds b complex vitamins, especially good if the pollen has degraded a bit.  I'm going to make some patties up tonight.  I am going to add brewers yeast because I picked up a few small bags of it, and might as well use it. 

Three yeast are mentioned as pollen substitute: brewing, torula, baker's and xxx which is from cheese industry.  They are as good but in large scale it is only price question. Berewing yeast is dried up with heat and some votamins have died like C. But just add riboflavin.

In my country torula is not delivered.

When you have  a couple of hives, it is better to take what you get from supermarket. You get soya flour there too.  Don,t make it more difficult. These are best stuffs. And use fructose too because it keeps patty moist.  Keep sugar content 50%.

Baker's yeas is good because it is living and it has vitamins. Easy to get. If you use soft baker's yeast, then use soya flour because it takes away extra water. Soya flour has exellent nutritient values.  Baker's yeas is cultivated for human consumption. It is safe to use.

You must make huge amount of beer if you want to get yeast to bees from that system. Then you will never se a clear day.

Whole system is very easy but needs experience that patty is just good for bees, not too soft or hard.

To use to bees what ever stuff what comes into mind, I cannot se any idea in it. People have feeded bees with what ever. Nothing to be found any more.

Best pollen substitutes were tested in laboratory USA 1977.

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[BEE C]

Hey finsky,
I ended up going over the article Fat bees Skinny bees, and using Cindis recipe but altering it slightly.  FBSB said that pollen was best, so I added more.  The article also said brewers yeast adds vitamin b complex if the pollen has degraded a bit and those are the vitamins that get lost.  So the recipe I used was 5 cups brewers yeast, 7 cups sugar, 4 cups water, and 5 cups pollen.  FBSB said that dry sugar was best to not stimulate the hive to brood production.  I guess the sugar in pollen patties acts like that? Or does it stimulate?  There are plenty of stored honey in both hives at this point.  My mentor said to hold off on feeding small colonies patties, but the article said to do so.  What would you recommend for a small overwintered colony finsky, patty or no patty?  I went ahead and fed a small patty to the smaller hive, because it made sense to me that if its smaller because of spring dwindle due to nosema protein would help their immune systems, until I can add some medicated feed (fumagilin B) when the weather warms enough to give stimulating sugar.  I also added insulation to the small hive at the same time to help them keep heat in, so they would hopefully be more able to break cluster.  Our temperature daytime in my apiary has been 9-12 degrees the last few days while I've done this.  The small hive is still dropping wax cappings onto the bottom board so I know they are eating the stores daily at around the same amount.  However I don't want to poke my nose into the hive and only quickly added a patty.  The larger hive cluster was in the upper brood box , while the smaller hive I didn't see the cluster, I am just assuming its there by the evidence of cappings dropped.

[Finsky]

  FBSB said that dry sugar was best to not stimulate the hive to brood production. 

This must be missunderstanding. In some circumtancies in Australia it is possible it they get pollen but not nectar. In early spring the help is very small.

  My mentor said to hold off on feeding small colonies patties, but the article said to do so. 

In cold weather things are different. My long experience is that when I feed small colonies 3-5 frames occupied, they often get difficult chalkbrood. I think hat they are not able to keep their expanded brood are warm during cold night and during windy weather. My chalk brood hives have often in windy site wher  wind blows into entrance.

What would you recommend for a small overwintered colony finsky, patty or no patty? 

I give myself but I do not recommend. Wait that big hives have enough new bees and then give frame or two of emerging bees and small hive starts fine. But dont give i they are not able to keep brood area warm. Brood will die.


Hive insulating: My experience is that biggest hives need insulation as well. I have used 4 years 15W terrarium heater cables on bottom boars and results are marvellous. Patty feeding + warming give 3-fold results in spring build up. Results will be seen when new nurser bees start to feed brood. That is the point what people cannot understand. :-D

I went ahead and fed a small patty to the smaller hive, because it made sense to me that if its smaller because of spring dwindle due to nosema protein would help their immune systems,

It does not help dwindling because nosema has viloted bees' gut already. But when you give frame of emerging bees, so colony gets healty nurser bees. It have mostly helped in my hives.

The small hive is still dropping wax cappings onto the bottom board so I know they are eating the stores daily at around the same amount. 

If they stop eating and are dead, you cannot do nothing.  :)

  The larger hive cluster was in the upper brood box , while the smaller hive I didn't see the cluster, I am just assuming its there by the evidence of cappings dropped.

Perhaps another hive has too much vain room and you should take it away like this

[BEE C]

Thanks finsky,
Chapter three of FBSB said "dry sugar is the best form of providing sugar without stimulating the colony to any significant extent".  I was curious about the influence of the proportion of sugar in the pollen patty, whether it would stimulate if the proportion was high? or if it acted like dry sugar feeding and was minimized.  You answered my question in another post, that it reduces spoiling of the patty.
Your responses about feeding patties to small colonies makes sense.  I don't really want to reduce the hive size for the smaller hive because I'm worried about the effect of opening it for too long, I thought that would be the bigger threat.  I may yank the patty out of it tomorrow though.  The larger hive instantly started to hum with bees chewing the patty.  So I'm off to get insulation boards for the larger hive tomorrow.  I didn't insulate for the winter cold, because its so mild here, but I can see how the spring buildup can make them catch cold coming in and out of cluster with the temperature fluctuations.  I have insulation boards over the inner cover already but I guess it might be a good idea to have spring time insulation for my area.  Thanks for esplaning it.

[Finsky]

I looked what does it mean that dry sugar not stimulate brood rearing.

The question was sugar feeding for winter.  It is very different question than accelerate brooding in spring. 

But to give dry sugar for winter in our climate is out of question. All feed with 66% sugar syrup. I have not heard any other systems.

But when we discuss how to accelerate brooding in spring, it is better that beekeepers are far from each other. They are quite furious with their opinions  :-D

But I may say that we just got 2 new beekeeping books and there was not even a term "honeybee nutrition" in the book. That is really burning issue.

Spring feeding is widely recommenced in Canada. It helps to get early yield from many plants. And if you have wintered canola fields, patty feeding is effective to catch huge yields.

This is in large scale in Canada http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/pollen/default.htm





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