Pollen-Infused Fondant (How I Made It)
Here's how I made those pollen-infused blocks of fondant from last video. Commercial pollen substitutes and supplements are often spiked with a variety of essential oils (or concentrated oils) that are so fragrant that the bees can't help but eat whatever the mixture happens to be. It's easy to conclude that these commercial pollen substitutes and supplements must be great for the because because they devour it so quickly. But I suspect honey bees would be as attracted to a bucket of wet cement if it was spiked with certain essential oils. That doesn't make it good for them. I was kind of blown away by how fragrant the pollen was after I put it through the grinder. I'd say real pollen doesn't need essential oils for the bees to dig into it. (I just noticed that I spelled fragrant wrong in the video. Oh well.) I also suspect that the wide variety of pollen I used to make the pollen-infused fondant provides more nutritious for the bees than they'd get from a single source of pollen (e.g., goldenrod or canola), and I have no doubt it's better for the bees than most commercial pollen substitutes and supplements. It's a diverse mixture of real pollen. You can't be that. 00:00 - Intro (text). 00:58 - Freshly-frozen pollen pellets. 01:09 - Grinding pollen into powder. 01:22 - Mixing pollen into fondant. 01:54 - Pollen-infused fondant. 02:18 - Feeding the bees. Ominous music written and performed by Phillip Cairns © 2025. Here's an unlisted video update for the truly dedicated: https://youtu.be/1kdn6D1zgrE https://www.instagram.com/phillipcairns/ https://www.facebook.com/mudsongsbeek... https://bsky.app/profile/phillipcairn... https://mudsongs.org/ #beekeeping in #newfoundland
A collection of videos from mudsongs.org that demonstrate some practical aspects of cold climate beekeeping. The description of each video will contain a link to an original blog post that provides updates, photos, comments and other details that aren't covered in the video. All videos are from Mud Songs... http://mudsongs.org