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

11 %: in line with the manual's 10 %

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. To build up colonies of the Iberian bee, the good-practice manual by Pajuelo Consultores (Spain) recommends a patty of around 10 % protein: with higher percentages, this bee may be slow to take it. At 11 % crude protein, this patty is in that line.

03 · WHEN TO GIVE IT

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

Where it shows: two to four weeks before a flow to stimulate laying, as the manufacturer indicates (if what you want is foragers on that flow, start earlier: about six weeks, two brood cycles), and always while no pollen is coming in from the field; in confinement and transport — where stress is paid for in stores —, on nucs and queen rearing batches just made up, and after glasshouse pollination. And in autumn, while the queen is still laying and no pollen is coming in: the winter bees build their reserves on the pollen of those weeks, and once the cluster has formed it is too late. 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 top bars of the brood frames, centred over the cluster and touching the bees; an empty super or the crown board is only there for headroom. On double brood, it goes between the two boxes, above the one with the brood. 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.

⚠ 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.