Sorry, can live with just “not a good idea” can you give more reasons. I see the one above but as I see it and I am truly GREEN at all this. Bees interact with each other in the field, correct they pass the same bush and plant? The book “Fat Bees skinny Bees” talk about the positives of using pollen substitute
I’m certainly not wanting to argue or be rude just trying to understand, I do feel healthy debates are just that healthy and help educate everyone that’s what I’m looking for 
I would just hate for you to feed your bees Pollen from other bees - it is the same with honey - you never feed your bees honey from other bees - it is not worth the possible heartache.
Substitute is OK my fault for jumping to conclusions I saw “Pollen” and would hate for you new little buzzbys to get AFB or EFB from eating contaminated food
You can get a Pollen Trap
I have one for when the forage really kicks off - it is the safest way to feed your bees Pollen - they collect it and you filter some off for a week when the pollen is going well. Then it needs to be frozen to keep it -after a short while otherwise it deteriorates. there are various styles to get - you would need to make sure it fitted the Floe Hive
1st of all I do thank you for continuing to reply. I do get not feeding the bees honey or pollen from other bees,
The link actually says pollen substitute. I guess if I used the word substitute it may have been clear.
Sorry I keep typing and rewriting sorry about the lack of continuity of the conversation 
YOUR Great 
thank you so much, any feed back is all ways good
My grandmother said to me a long time ago, the difference between adults and children are the fact that adults can disagree and learn from each other children just get mad.
And yes we can have 50-year-old children out there
I think the issue is that your pollen feeder is accessible to bees apart from your own. Is that right?
I would do what your mentor or nucleus supplier recommends, but I have a personal preference too, of course! 
Bees navigate using a number of cues. One is visible landmarks. Another really important one is the position of the sun, and they also have the ability to see polarization of light and use that for navigation too. For the best possible first orientation flights in a new location, it is therefore optimal for the bees if it is a sunny day. My personal experience is that bees are much more interested in the environment on a sunny day, and they ignore what I am doing. On an overcast day, even if it is warm, they are more likely to get cranky with me. On a cold, overcast, windy day, they truly hate me. 
Your bees will be fine sealed in their nucleus box, even if you wait for sunshine the next day. If you felt brave, you could open it as Valli suggested (wearing protective gear), but my druthers would be to wait at least a couple of hours, or even until the next day for decent sunshine. 
Dawn
Prayers for your bees from the pastors?
I am sure the bees will do fine without prayers, you have the makings of a very good beekeeper!
Seems my Nuc and Beemate are ready to deliver 
. Given I’m in the tropical north Queensland where our winter is cold enough for us locals , do you recommend still feeding the ladies?
Your nuc should come with a frame of food.
The time to feed is when they go into your big hive and they need to draw frames. Unless of course the weather is bad and they can’t get out
Many thanks for your detailed instructions! I just bought and installed a 5 frame package to my 8 frame flow brood box. I fed them and in 2 weeks they waxed up 3 empty frames completely. I live in the cold area directions you outlined so I’ll move forward with that. The Italian girls have been busy so after my next inspection (as I’m still clumsy) I will add another brood box if I find my queen, capped brood and pollen. I’m so nervous cuz my area really needs my girls! Thank you so much for your blog! Plus, my girls drank a gallon of syrup in a week. Is that normal!
Good to hear.
That syrup consumption is fine and is about status quo for each of my 7 nucs (I experimented with feeding this year to jump start my season and fulfill nuc orders). I usually need to refill every 4 days but that will vary based on weather and forage.
Thanks! I’m all nervous like a new Momma! Tons of girls going in with pollen too! Thanks for the newbie help! Go girls! Nashville needs you! 
Hi all. I’m hoping for some tips/advice/suggestions as we pick up our first nuc today. We will be driving this evening about an hour and a half from the bee supplier to our hive set-up. The supplier said for us to bring our brood box and he’d install the five frames in it for us to then transport back to our farm. I’m just not sure about the logistics of this. Has anyone had experience doing it this way? Please forgive my ignorance and know that I will not be offended if you reply with the most basic directions. The bee guy is super nice and will give us instruction, I’m sure, but he’s not a Flow Hiver and he lives too far from us to be a hands-on mentor. We are trying to find a local beekeeper willing to advise us along the way, but in the meantime, I’m hoping for help from the virtual mentors on this forum. Thank you in advance!
I have done this several times, but it is a bit short notice for you to do it the way I would.
With a 90 minute journey, the main issue is going to be ventilation for the bees. Hopefully your supplier has thought of this and has a solution. What I would do is take the brood box, plus 3 extra frames to fill the 8 frame hive box. That helps stop the frames from sliding around while moving the hive. You will also need the hive floor, and the inner cover (flat piece with a hole in it that goes under the roof). I would cover that hole with #8 hardware cloth, taped or stapled down. That will be your temporary roof for transport, and the mesh cloth is bee proof but allows some ventilation. If you can’t get the hardware cloth in time, I would use insect screen instead.
You will need a ratcheting strap to hold the hive together in transport. I wouldn’t trust duct tape on a 90 min journey. The ones that you can buy in Home Depot are fine - you will need one about 12 feet long if you ever have a bigger hive to move, and that length is pretty easy to find, so that is what I would get. Loading strain is not an issue for the strap, it will probably be 300 to 400lb, which is more than you will ever need.
Finally you are going to need some way to close the entrance, if you don’t have it already. I normally staple hardware cloth to the hive, but again, you may have trouble finding that. In that case, you will need a strip of insect screen, securely fixed across the hive entrance, either with staples, or if you really can’t bear that, duct tape. I would suggest you do all this before you install the bees - it is much harder once they are investigating what you are doing.
If you are going to put the hive inside your vehicle, I would suggest that the driver should wear a veil and gloves. Even a full suit. Bee stings can be very distracting when you are driving, and you don’t want to have an accident with 8,000 angry bees in the vehicle.
When you put the hive in the vehicle, try to position it so that the frames run the length of the vehicle. That way, when you brake or accelerate, the frames will not tilt and squish bees. Needless to say, you need to take corners gently!
It sounds daunting, and it is terrifying the first time. However, it really isn’t hard, it just takes preparation. Good luck, and let us know how it all goes!
A million thanks, Dawn! This information is very helpful. We have time to put screen or hardware cloth on the hive and I think we have a strap already. I was feeling a bit panicked and you talked me off the ledge. I am grateful (so is my husband). We will let you know how it goes!
Very glad to try to help. Don’t take the Flow super, it won’t be bee-proof in transport.
Plus sometimes the screened bottom board is not bee-proof, so I suggest you put the corrugated white plastic slider in the upper slot, if you can put insect screen or hardware cloth over the entrance. If not, and the hive will be on the back of a truck, you can just leave the slider out and duct tape the entrance completely closed. If it will be inside the vehicle, be aware that you may have bees in there with you.
Wrap the ratcheting strap under and over the top of the hive, centered on the long side. That is more than you need to know. You will be fine. 
My gosh, you were so helpful to us yesterday! Thanks again. We did everything you suggested and my husband cobbled together a nifty screened-in frame thing to put over the hive in our car. Our bee supplier was kind enough not to laugh at our newby-ness, and he really had everything set up so we didn’t have to do anything but look and listen. The trip from supplier to our farm was blessedly uneventful, and setting the hive on its new stand also went fine even though it was dark by then. The bees seemed really mellow and when I took the screen off the entrance, a few kind of peeked out but most stayed inside. Today when my husband went back out to check, they were buzzing around in what I hope is a normal, happy fashion! We will go tomorrow to tweak things and check on the bees and I will give you another update. Thank you again for your kind encouragement!
So happy to hear it went OK. Thank you for the feed back. Please update on future inspections or questions when you have time.
Hi again. We have heard from just about everyone that we need to add another deep to our set-up so we will do that this weekend. That means we wait until that second deep is filled before we add the Flow super, correct? We made our hive stand a little too tall so now we are a bit daunted at the vision of how high our hive will be with three full size boxes! We will have to do some adjusting–either shorten the hive stand or raise the floor. :)) As usual, advice is most welcome.
Are you in San Diego? My mom is a North Park girl and we usually escape the Midwest at Christmas for a week in Mission Bay. We love it there! This year we went to Pacific Grove instead (which was lovely), but we all missed the SD scene. Hoping we go back to Mission Bay this Christmas. We crave Mitch’s clam chowder and shrimp tacos! :))