Alltech ProteAll patties 300g (11%) - Individual

01 · WHY PROTEIN

The colony's defences are built from amino acids

From the amino acids in its diet the bee builds the antimicrobial peptides that pass into its haemolymph and into the royal jelly it feeds to young larvae and to the queen: those are its immune system. And they come almost only from pollen, which needs four or five different flowerings to be complete. When the field does not provide them, a protein feed covers the gap. It cures nothing: it keeps the raw material from running out.

02 · WHAT IT GIVES

The 11 % tells you what it is for, and what it is not

The base is sugars — beet sugar, dextrose and fructose — with yeast products (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) providing the protein and prebiotic fraction, plus zinc, selenium and vitamin C. At 11 % crude protein it maintains and stimulates a colony that already has some pollen coming in; to rebuild a colony with nothing in the field you need a high protein patty, from 15 % upwards. Mixing the two up is the expensive mistake: you spend the patty and the brood does not come.

03 · WHEN TO GIVE IT

Ahead of a flow, in confinement and on freshly made nucs

Where it shows: two to four weeks before a flow so you arrive with bees ready, in confinement and transport — where stress is paid for in stores —, on nucs and queen rearing batches just made up, and after glasshouse pollination. In monoculture areas it covers the gap between flows. What it does not do: it does not cure disease, it does not replace varroa control and it does not guarantee a crop.

04 · HOW TO PUT IT ON

Wrapper torn, face down, straight onto the top bars

Tear the paper and lay the patty opening down on the brood frames, inside an empty super or under the crown board. The cellulose paper itself acts as a base and keeps the patty from drying out; the bees work it from below. Store the ones you do not use below 20 °C, dry and out of direct sun: shelf life is 12 months from manufacture.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

Do not feed patties during a flow or with honey supers on: whatever goes into the super ends up in the honey you are going to jar. Take any remains out before supering.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This reference is the single 300 g patty. The wrapper is biodegradable cellulose paper with no plastic, so it arrives soft to the touch: that is normal for a patty of this kind.