Mother Nature's Conditioning Food

Abstract

Just a word first off on our experience with raising canaries. My wife and I are relatively new comers to the art of raising canaries and have enjoyed their beautiful song for only 7 years. We've learned a lot from both experience and listening to some of the real pros that have kept birds for many years. This article is in response to one of these fine canary breeders.

My background has been a lifetime of intense interest and schooling in the biological sciences and especially in the invertebrates. I've been especially interested in animal behavior since my graduate work in bee behavior. Currently, I'm a professional beekeeper and international consultant on beekeeping. The mention of my broad interest in biology and specialty in bees pertains because the following observations and eventual conclusions would not have been possible without interest and training in both areas.

Early in our endeavor to breed canaries, we realized the difficulties of getting our birds into both breeding condition and feeding condition. We soon learned it is one thing to have eggs, it's another to have them hatch, and yet still another to have the hens raise the babies until they can feed themselves. We've tried about all the different mixes known. We've given vitamins, minerals, tonics, sixteen different types of seed, cod liver oil, and even Geritol. Experience-wise, we feel like we've become chemists and nutritionists for our birds.

With all our reading and knowledge on bird care, it was very apparent that if Mother Nature's results were only as good as ours, the survival of the species would be in serious jeopardy. It wasn't until two years ago that we discovered what Mother Nature makes available to bring some of her wild birds into breeding condition.

In 1968, while attending junior college in Idaho, I had the good fortune to take an ornithology course from a very fine professor who believed Mother Nature was the best teacher, and the woods should be the classroom. We spent many hours observing the behavior of birds in

the Yellowstone area as well as in the southern part of Idaho. The finches were especially fascinating. It was then, in the early spring, that I first observed a specific behavior of finches and other small birds.

In the very early spring, long before the early flowers pop out of the ground, and long before the first insects become plentiful, these small birds could be observed high in the elm and willow trees seemingly pecking at bare branches. At that early time of year, there are no leaves on the trees. I simply wrote in my notes, "unusual behavior of various finches seen high in elm and willow trees pecking at branches." Some years later as a beekeeper, I took for granted that beehives located near elm and willow trees would always start to raise their young earlier and in greater numbers than beehives not near these trees.

On closer observation, it was determined what these trees had that made the diff ern ce between bee locations - POLLEN. In the publication American Honey Plants, it states, "The elms are very attractive to bees for pollen. The American or White Elm is especially valuable and a large tree will attract so many bees that the humming sounds like a swarm."! The elms and willows pop out with a little catkin much like a pussy willow. Little, if any, honey is to be collected, but tons of pollen are available. The stored honey in the hive along with this magical food is so nutritionally power packed with its proteins, minerals, and vitamins that it makes the bees' diet complete.

These two separate observations, the birds pecking at supposedly bare branches and bees collecting pollen, did not come together until a couple of years ago when upon closer observation of our bird friends, I noticed they were obviously eating the pollen from the trees and not pecking uselessly at bare branches.

The third element of discovery occurred when we started to collect pollen from our beehives for our human customer's consumption.