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  • Saving pollen packed frames..

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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #11646  by Steve 1972
 02 Aug 2021, 20:29
The beginning of the year was a bad one with having to feed bees and give pollen substitute to keep them going..
When they finally got going in May i had lost nearly all my spring crop and further down the weeks four colonies..the colony loss was unusual as i still had the four full of bees but virgins disappeared and some where not mated..(drone layers).. over the past month or so i have left a remaining two to it so the supers above can be capped of..in the mean time the brood frames are getting packed with pollen..
The other two colonies i shook out a while back give me more pollen than the substitute pack of pollen would give me and i have more to come..
Anyway i now have and will have double frozen over winter..
The Question is (Nigel) is the frozen pollen frames better than the substitute.. ;)
 #11651  by NigelP
 03 Aug 2021, 08:23
Yes.
Randy Oliver has tested all sorts of pollen substitutes, and whilst they all work to some degree nothing beats real pollen (to date anyway).
I have about 30 brood frames full of pollen frozen down to feed back next Feb when they are starting brood rearing again but have no (or very few) sources of natural pollen available.
I think the freezer I bought second hand cost me less than the substitute would have cost.
And the best thing about natural pollen clogged frames are they are free.
The caveat being not everyone keeps bees in pollen rich areas and may struggle to find excess frames..
 #11655  by AdamD
 03 Aug 2021, 14:17
Poor spring for me too - and nucs ran out of pollen as they had not been able to store much the previous year. Larger colonies were OK for pollen but brood sizes were small so there was a large space to heat in a cold spring so all got off to a slow start. Frustratingly there were plants flowering but it was too cold for the bees to go out and get much of it.
I might save a few frames as I come across them and freeze them.
 #11656  by Steve 1972
 03 Aug 2021, 17:30
That will do for me Nigel..how do you feed it back to your bees when the time is right..i have cut it out of the frames which gives me two square sections..half of a brood frame will fit on the top bars of the nucs nice beside the fondant if needed and the same goes for all the full colonies..
 #11657  by NigelP
 03 Aug 2021, 19:09
It depends....usually find a "warm" Feb day and replace an empty brood frame with a pollen one....very quickly.
Or use an eke and lay it flat on top. Not being playing around with it long enough to know what is best way. Last season was so bad I didn't have any pollen clogged frames.
 #11664  by Steve 1972
 06 Aug 2021, 17:18
All my full colonies and nucs have eke's on them at some point over winter to accomadate the fondant blocks so laying a piece of pollen frame on the top bars will be easy and quick..
This year has been bad for me with late spring Queen losses being high..I come out of winter with nine Queen + colonies..mid way through the OSR flow I was down to four colonies with last years mated Queens (all buckfast)..all the mongrel clipped Queens vanished and only one colony out of four mongrels ended up with a mated Queen..
The reason I mention this is the three colonies with none or drone layers in them have just about filled three brood boxes full of pollen..I have also took pollen filled frames from the Queen + colonies over the season to give Queens space to lay..
So to conclude my year..bad Queen losses low honey yield but loads of pollen.. :D
 #11665  by NigelP
 07 Aug 2021, 19:31
Steve 1972 wrote:
06 Aug 2021, 17:18

The reason I mention this is the three colonies with none or drone layers in them have just about filled three brood boxes full of pollen..I
So to conclude my year..bad Queen losses low honey yield but loads of pollen.. :D
It always amazes me how much pollen a "working colony" gets through. Me suspects you are seeing (as do I) the accumulation that happens when they have no brood to rear so the pollen is not getting used but the bees just continue bringing it in.
Assuming you are in a pollen prolific area.
 #11683  by Steve 1972
 09 Aug 2021, 16:04
I have just finished cutting nearly a full brood box of pollen ...if it was not for the patches of drone brood I daré say the box would have been full.