Courtesy of Gordon Wardell

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In a world obsessed with performance enhancement, underperforming bees can now get some zing in their sting.

One Tucson entomologist is trying to beef up the pollinating insects, which may become nutritionally deficient from a lack of variety in their diet.

Gordon Wardell, president of SAFE R&D LLC in Tucson, spent four years researching the right concoction to give nature's little workers some extra pep.

A solution is critical, he said, because beekeepers worry their bees aren't going to be adequate pollinators.

"We want to make bees healthier and live longer," said Wardell, who is in a cooperative research agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson.

"So we feed it to them — like a bee smoothie."

"MegaBee" is made by Yuma-based Castle Dome Solutions LLC in partnership with Hamilton, Ill.-based Dadant and Sons Inc. as a product for commercial and hobbyist beekeepers. Castle Dome started manufacturing MegaBee in September, said Cherie Gilmore, the company's sales manager.

A new protein shake must be the bee's knees: One part amino acids, a dollop of lipids and a hefty dose of pH balance, among other ingredients, may make for a better supplement that could help buck the trend of vanishing hives.

In what has over the last year become known as colony-collapse disorder, honeybees disappear from their hives. Dead bees are seldom found and there is no evidence of disease, predators or other causes in their nearly empty homes.

And while scientists have tried to find the "smoking gun" that causes the disorder, Wardell believes it could be a symptom of poor nutrition.

The paradigm for beekeeping has changed in the last 20 years, Wardell said. And since some plants, like almonds, bloom at the end of January, bees have to be stimulated to work earlier.

The new supplement, distributed by Dadant, comes as a powder that can be fed to bees dry, made into patties or given as a liquid. The supplement mimics the granular texture of natural pollen.

"It's a very nutritional diet for the bees," said Wade Fisher, a third-generation pollinator who works in several areas, including Florida and New England states, and who is just starting to use MegaBee.

"When you're trying to imitate Mother Nature, it's just not easy."