Pollen patties are protein supplements designed to increase brood development and honey production during springtime, as well as contain Small Hive Beetle attacks.
Bees often need additional pollen sources in late winter and early spring as their natural pollen supplies diminish, in order to build up enough bee numbers in preparation for spring nectar flow. At such times, using an artificial pollen source such as pollen substitute is ideal.
Contents
How to Make Pollen Patties
Be it homemade or pre-made, patties are a simple yet effective way to help your bees during early spring buildup periods. Pattie contains pollen substitutes enriched with vitamin C that stimulate brood production while simultaneously increasing colony size prior to nectar flow onset.
Protein-rich pollen supplements can play an integral role in maintaining hive health by providing bees with a reliable source of nutrition and stimulating increased brood production, leading to more worker bees, which in turn means stronger colonies that are better prepared to forage, defend themselves from pests or disease, and produce surplus honey.
How to make homemade pollen patties is easy: just mix water and granulated sugar until the texture of peanut butter forms in a pot. This will mimic natural pollen’s moisture level while helping bees digest it more quickly. Refrigerate or freeze before use.
How to Store Pollen Patties
Beekeepers use pollen patties as an essential means of stimulating and maintaining a larger brood population than would naturally develop over time. A large brood population ensures optimal honey production during honey flow seasons; supplementing your brood population through pollen supplementation may prove particularly useful in areas without sufficient natural protein sources for foraging purposes.
Bees collect pollen globules during their foraging missions and transport them back to their hives, where hardworking house bees use lactic acid fermentation to process it into bee bread for nurse bees to use as protein-rich food for larvae and eggs. When there is not enough protein available in a hive, symptoms include low egg and larva survival rates as well as nurse bees cannibalizing their own eggs or young larvae as food source, leading to cannibalism by nurses cannibalising themselves as well as “dry” brood cells – all symptoms that indicate something is amiss in an otherwise functioning hive.
Beekeepers using pollen patties must carefully monitor hive health when supplementing. If they notice an increase in dead bees, pollen supplementation must cease immediately and only resume when weather conditions encourage daily foraging and they observe their bees bringing in fresh pollen each day.
How to Feed Pollen Patties
Patties can provide bees with an easily accessible source of protein during early spring or late winter periods when pollen supplies may be limited. When used sparingly, patties can help maintain colony strength during these low pollen availability times.
Bees depend on honey for energy, but their young larvae also require an intake of pollen rich with proteins for nutrition. House bees gather and process pollen before packing it into cells for brood-rearing diet. At home, house bees then use lactic acid fermentation to transform pollen into bee bread that’s easier for their digestive systems to process.
Most beekeepers provide patties in their hives near clustered bees for easy nurse access. When offering patties, ensure they can be eaten up quickly as this prevents Small Hive Beetles from reproducing within them. Betterbee offers pre-formulated products called winter patties which can be opened and placed directly above clustered bees for instant protein feeding.
How Many Pollen Patties Per Hive
Beekeepers sometimes discover that their colonies are having difficulty rearing brood due to insufficient pollen stores. Supplemental pollen patties may help stimulate brood rearing and build stronger foundations for honey production. In spring and late fall/winter it can be beneficial to feed them to stimulate brood rearing and create strong foundations for honey flow.
These patties can be made using either commercial pollen substitutes (Bee Pro) or beekeeper recipes containing dry pollen and sugar syrup. When completed, they should have the texture of peanut butter – should any hardening occur, quickly immerse them in water to re-moisten before feeding them to your bees.
How often and in what size patty to use in a hive will depend on each beekeeper; however, protein patties should only be introduced during cool winter temperatures to encourage brood-rearing behavior that’s normally discouraged by temperatures at that level. Furthermore, pollen patties may attract Small Hive Beetles, so any of those being left should be removed quickly before this pest arrives at their nests.
