Protein patties Bee-Sacc® Health Alltech 16% - Individual 300g

01 · WHY PROTEIN

The fat body is what separates a winter bee from a summer one

From the protein in its diet the bee builds vitellogenin and stores it in its fat body: that is where royal jelly, nutrient transport and much of its longevity come from. A bee that goes into winter with little fat body lives less and starts the spring brood worse. That is why this patty goes on before wintering, not once the cold is already there.

02 · WHERE IT SITS

16 %: above the manual's 10 %

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 16 % crude protein, this one sits above that reference. And the protein does not come from plant meal but from Bee Polenate, a hydrolysed yeast extract with free amino acids, vitamins and nucleotides.

03 · WHEN TO GIVE IT

Before wintering, and when the field runs out of pollen

The maker places it in the weeks before wintering: that is, while the queen is still laying and the bees that will overwinter are emerging, from late August into autumn depending on your area, and only if no pollen is coming in; once the cluster has formed they no longer touch it, and where autumn pollen is coming in, the patty adds nothing to the cluster. Also in confinement, swarming and spells of little pollen in the field. Making up nucs also fits, because young bees are what counts there. What it does not do: it does not cure, it does not replace varroa control, and it does not turn a colony without bees into a strong one.

04 · HOW TO PUT IT ON

On the top bars, with the wrapper acting as a tray

Tear the wrapper and lay the patty face 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, and the patty never goes in a super of its own or in a corner. On double brood, it goes between the two boxes, above the one with the brood; if the cluster moves up, the patty follows. The paper holds the paste and slows it drying out; cut a small slit, not a big hole. If a colony leaves it half eaten, check first where it was — more than four or five centimetres from the brood and they barely touch it — and whether pollen was coming in; whatever sits outside the cluster dries out and goes uneaten. On nucs and mini-plus boxes it works well cut into two-finger strips laid across the top bars.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

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

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This reference is the single 300 g patty. The first time, try it on about ten hives before buying for the whole apiary, as the manual advises; and if what is missing is energy for winter, this is not the one.