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  A Beekeeper's Diary
This is a daily diary of activities in our commercial beekeeping operation at Swalwell in Central Alberta,
Canada, and observations on the business of commercial beekeeping.  I've retired, and we've now
reduced to thirty or so hives, but be sure to visit the logs from previous years

Allen,

In your March 30 posting you mention Chinese pollen. I trust that you are not advocating the use of this pollen by Global or other Canadian patty producers. Do we really need to support Chinese exporters of bee products when Canadian beekeepers are struggling due to market conditions created by those same exporters??

I was very glad to see the creation of Global which allowed me the option to purchase a Canadian product. I became a customer this year. But I will not be a customer if Chinese pollen is used in future products. I am one who is willing to pay a bit extra for a Canadian product and support a Canadian industry.

Hope you can clarify your remarks.

Well, this is a complex topic, and I'm not sure I have the hours I need to examine this question fully, but I'll sketch out a few points, and maybe elaborate later.  Also, lets' take the discussion to HoneyBeeWorld Forum.  It's easier for me, and others can put in their 2¢ worth.

• We do not know how the current diets stack up against pure pollen, and it is a top priority to run tests this spring in Alberta to find out.  Who knows?  Maybe our current patties are better than pollen.  We'll see. Beekeepers will not pay more than they are now for bee feed, but with cheap pollen available, the efficacy of substitutes vs. real pollen should be examined.
   
• Although producing pollen for human consumption is feasible in Canada, trapping pollen for bee feed does not appear to be feasible on a large scale.  Comparatively few beekeepers can trap pollen without setting back their bees so much that they need to make it up somehow, and the cost of production is therefore high.  Moreover, some years give excess pollen, but many do not.  Thus, the supply of Canadian pollen is not only unreliable and limited, but prices and supply are not at all stable.  Patty makers need a 100% reliable supply
   
• The purpose of feeding bees protein is to increase bee health and production.  At current honey prices, beekeepers are very short of cash, and must cut expenses as much as possible, while maintaining reasonable levels of colony survival and production.  Even at high prices, Canadian pollen is hard to find and the simple fact is that the high prices currently demanded by Canadian pollen producers are the main reason that most current pollen patties contain only small percentages of pollen, now that it is possible to eliminate the disease hazard by irradiation.
   
• To increase the pollen content of patties to a high level, Global would need as much as 100,000 pounds annually, and probably more in future years. That is far more than all the Canadian producers combined can conceivably provide, even if there were no other customers, at least in the short run.  If pollen feeding proved much better than supplement feeding, and became widespread, there could never be enough Canadian production to meet needs -- at any price.  IMO, anyhow.
   
• As for "support(ing) Chinese exporters of bee products when Canadian beekeepers are struggling due to market conditions created by those same exporters...", I think we need to distinguish between the Chinese beekeepers and the state exporters.  Chinese beekeepers are no different from us, and I personally feel a closer association with Chinese beekeepers than with, say, the CHC, or some Ontario beekeepers and some Saskatchewan beekeepers who have worked so hard against the legitimate needs and desires of our Western bee industry.
  
  Also, consider that, by buying the Chinese pollen -- assuming it is more effective that the current and pending supplements and substitutes (which is by no means proven, yet) -- we improve of competitiveness, by reducing need for buying packages from overseas, for buying few corporate mite treatments, and by producing more honey more cheaply, we find the Chinese actually help us compete in the honey market.  Also, if they are trapping pollen from their hives, they are probably producing less honey.
   
• To top it all off, in recent years, in several cases, in spite of demands by Global for Canadian pollen, and for pedigree info, what was being represented as Canadian pollen by some Canadian beekeepers, turned out, to be Spanish, U.S., or Chinese pollen. Global so far, has specified Canadian pollen when buying, but has no way to be sure.  Unlike the producers of soy and yeasts who have to publish and meet stringent specifications, beekeepers do not do so for pollen.  That's one reason that many of us used patties with a zero pollen content until irradiation became a practical and common practice.  Don't worry about disease in Global patties; all pollen used by Global is irradiated by trustworthy parties as a precaution against just such an eventuality.