Mann Lake FD210 Ultra Bee Dry Feed Pail, 10-Pound

Great product. Bees loved the patties i made from this. But showed very little interest in it as dry open feed.

Impossible to open. Bucket was totally un usable after first opening

Okay..let’s establish the baseline. I’m a shepherd, I run a small farm, I’M REALLY CHEA….er…THRIFTY… That said I swallowed hard when I saw the price tag. I hadn’t planned on buying a new tractor this year…or 10lbs of dry bee food! Once you get over this hurdle and read the rest of this you will press ‘BUY’ just as I did! While this is NOT Pollen…it IS a well balanced scientific diet of 58% protein that can be fed straight or incorporated into 1 to 7.5 mix hard patties or gooey fondant…depending on your style. The Bees LOVE IT! I started by hanging a 12” long 4” ABS Pipe with one cap glued securely and one removable for refills (I threaded it so it would reliably last through a nuclear blast…it could happen). I drilled four 1/4” holes into each end just below the half way up point so that rain would not run in and start mold growth…(yes I glued a tiny awning over the holes but you’re getting distracted!) I put in about 6 ounces of the stuff and left it. The bees found it and helped themselves…a group of bees unhooked it from the branch and flew it to the back door and kept buzzing and thumping the door until I refilled it two days later!…(that didn’t ACTUALLY happen)…. They went through it in two days and I put in 8 ounces …(which they ate, took, stuffed in their pockets…whatever bees do with dry food)…that DID happen… I am trying mixing it with sugar 1 part Mann Lake FD210 Ultra Bee Dry Feed to 7.5 parts granulated organic cane sugar. This seems to be a mixture they can appreciate. This Winter I will add water and make a fondant wrapped in parchment paper and place it in both the Langstrom and Horizontal Flat Bar Hives along with a very thick sugar syrup that resists (but does not always prevent) freezing. I don’t feed throughout the Winter because they don’t have high nutritional needs when they are in ‘hunker down for the cold’ mode. If the bees suddenly grow odd appendages or start speaking Latin to me and solving complex calculations due to super-bee-brain food and high quality fondant…I will update this immediately..(that has NOT ..yet…actually happened). If you cannot afford POLLEN…(10X’s MORE EXPENSIVE) then consider buying just 1lb and adding it to this mixture. It is unnecessary from the Nutritional point of view but from the Bee Satisfaction Rating point of view…should they happen to find your smart phone…they might put some very solidly appreciative ratings on YELP! under the heading ‘We Love Our Bee Keeper!’ Think about it….it’s only $20 extra and will last a very long time and BEES LOVE POLLEN! (If you advertise ‘Organic’ VERIFY that the pollen you buy IS Organic!’…(get that in writing because people actually CARE!) One little nasty about this product. If you use this you cannot put ‘ORGANIC’ on your honey because you can’t personally verify all the ingredients and every step of their growth and processing…sad…but it’s a thing. As a recommendation to the Manufacturer: Consider making a line of ORGANIC CERTIFIED Mann Lake FD211 Ultra Bee Dry Feed (Pail, 10lb). I think there would bee an ENORMOUS READY MARKET for it! I don’t know about honey in your area but CERTIFIED Organic Honey captures about 50% higher prices (but actually offers a lower profit margin to the producer). But I digress….

Used in dry form during pollen dearth. The bees moved it directly to brood area.

Rather than a pollen patty, if you have a spare comb of blank wax, simply fill it up with pollen sup and put it back in, the bees will take care of the rest.