Ultra bee dry pollen substitute is a high-protein feed designed to increase brood production before honey flow. You can use it either through feeders or inside your hive.
Patties help prevent bee robbers from siphoning off pollen from your colonies and help decrease disease transmission in your feeder. Incorporating patties also keeps protein levels higher than with dry powder feeds.
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High Protein
As pollen dearths occur, beekeepers need to provide their colonies with high quality protein supplements in order to stay healthy and productive. Mann Lake’s Ultra Bee High Protein Pollen Substitute is an excellent solution in this regard.
As its name suggests, high protein pollen boasts a higher protein content than natural pollen and also contains other vital ingredients, such as fats (lipids), minerals and vitamins that will provide your bees with all of the protein and other essential nutrients they require for brood production.
Product can be used as dry feed by scattering a small amount outside the hive and out of reach of wind, then placing forager bees to find it and bring it back in, where they’ll mix it with honey to create bee bread – increasing brood production while simultaneously creating healthier, stronger bees. It may also be made into patties to be fed directly into the hive via various recipes.
High Amino Acids
At any season of year, beekeepers need to feed their colonies a balanced, nutritious diet in order to promote strong colony growth and ensure strong colonies. Feeding an artificial pollen substitute like Mann Lake’s Ultra Bee or Ultra Bee Plus during natural pollen dearths can help stimulate brood production while also maintaining healthy colonies.
These products are specially formulated with an amino acid profile as well as essential vitamins, minerals and fats found in natural pollen to promote brood production, increase longevity and provide healthier bees.
These products can be fed as dry feed to bees inside a hive, via pollen feeder (FD-115) or made into patties and placed on top bars of brood boxes or shallow supers of your hive, where bees will consume it as part of their own bee bread, strengthening their colony for the spring honey flow.
Vitamins & Minerals
Pollen provides not only protein, but also an abundance of essential vitamins and minerals – which is why beekeepers supply their colonies with specially formulated pollen replacement when natural sources are limited.
These artificial substitutes typically consist of animal product-free plant proteins and amino acids, lipids (fats), minerals and vitamins combined into an animal product-free pollen patty with sugar and vegetable oil for bees to eat while foraging for food.
Once fed, this patty will be consumed and distributed throughout the hive for both nutrition and brood support. When natural sources of protein and other essential nutrients become scarce during winter and spring months, this pollen substitute can provide bees with extra support as they raise full broods while increasing longevity – with scientific analysis showing its nutritional value equaling natural pollen.
Fats
Last summer in the West was marked by an abundance of forage shortage, leading to colonies without additional feed quickly declining in numbers. As such, this strategy quickly attracted adherents and will undoubtedly become an important consideration among beekeepers going forward.
Mann Lake product we sampled is a bulk dry feed formulation that can be cut into chunks for feeding as a supplement or formed into patties to be placed on brood boxes. It contains no animal by-products but instead provides various plant proteins, amino acids, lipids, vitamins and minerals as ingredients.
Bees treat the patty like pollen, collecting it with their tongues and depositing it in their corbicula (pollen baskets). Natural pollen however cannot be stored; bees typically consume it straightaway. Small hive beetles largely ignore it though; we found that their attention was distracted from attacking each other near the entrance by spending most of their time at a patty feeder rather than near it trying to rob.
