We often get the question: When should I apply Cubee and how much should I give ?

Our recommendation is based on a balance between cost and benefits. Cubee is made from organically grown Reishi mushroom which promotes the health of your honeybees in many ways. See our blog post on our research results for more information on the observed benefits of Cubee supplementation at different moments of the season. 

From these experiments, we recommend providing two supplementations of 50ml spread two weeks apart of Cubee to your bees in spring for a better development of the colony and increased honey production. Cubee acts on the interaction between viruses and honeybees, making the bees more resilient and vigorous during key moments of the season. We are also currently putting together research experiments to evaluate if Cubee increases the activity of the bee hives similarly to the pattern observed in mammals when supplemented Reishi resulted in increased energy level. 

Then when winter bees start to be laid, you want to hit that colony once or twice with 50ml of Cubee. Usually in northern climates, this happens during the month of August. From other research, we know that Reishi mushroom reduces the viral doses associated with high mites infestation colonies. Combining Reishi with your fall treatment will increase your odds of having a good survival and stronger colony in spring (see this blog post about the impact of fall supplementation of winter survival and spring colony strength.)

Can I overdose my colonies with Cubee?

Let's suppose you had an unlimited amount of money and wanted to flood your colony with Cubee, could you overdose them. We did try to overdose colonies with up to 12 supplementations in season and still observe beneficial effects of each supplementation event. However, we also ran cage trials with Brandon Hopkins lab in Washington State University and observed high mortality of bees when we provided a ridiculous amount of Reishi for a few bees. Indeed, Reishi like most mushrooms will act on the microbiome of honeybees which could lead to dysenteriae if one were to provide about 50 doses of Cubee during the season to his colony. Therefore, we recommend limiting your supplementation events to a maximum of 1 supplementation every 14 days if you want to push the limit of the benefits of Cubee to its maximum! 

For how long will I observe the benefits of my supplementation ?

From our experiments, direct effects of a Cubee supplementation last at least for 12-18 months. We're still investigating if the supplementation events promote a short term effect (30-40days) on the bees which results in a long lasting effect on colonies parameters due to that boost or if impact of the prebiotic last for longer than the average lifespan of a bees. We're still unsure of the impact of Cubee on the microbiome of the colony however we know that Reishi is a prebiotic and should affect positively the microbiome of the colonie. Therefore, we could observe longer effect of a single supplementation. We plan to look at the impact of Cubee supplementation in a following experiment in the upcoming months. Stay in touch for more on that soon !