Superprotein Pattie 450g (12,5%) Dulcofruct® - (Individual)

01 · WHY PROTEIN

Royal jelly comes from a gland that depends on what the bee ate

Nurse bees feed the brood on royal jelly, and they make it in hypopharyngeal glands whose size depends directly on the pollen they ate in their first ten days of life. Without that pollen the glands do not develop and the brood is fed worse. That is why the effect of a protein feed shows up not in the bee that eats it but in the next generation: you give it two or three weeks ahead, not on the day you need it.

02 · WHERE IT SITS

12.5 %: neither a maintenance patty nor a build-up one

The figure places the product better than any adjective. Below 12 % you are in maintenance patties, which hold a colony but do not build it; from 15-16 % upwards you are in build-up patties, for rebuilding a colony with nothing in the field. This 12.5 % sits between the two: it covers a pollen gap and backs up an effort, and it is the one that pays when some pollen is coming in but not enough.

03 · WHEN TO GIVE IT

After the effort, not instead of the flow

The clear moments: after a demanding harvest or a pollination contract, when the colony has spent more than it has replaced; when making up nucs, where young bees are what counts; and in the summer dearth, with heat and little in flower. 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 brood frames, inside an empty super or under the crown board. The paper holds the paste and slows it drying out; cut a small slit, not a big hole — a patty dried on the surface is the number one reason a colony leaves it half eaten.

⚠ 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 450 g patty. If what you need is cheap energy to get through winter, a sugar patty works out better; if you are coming out of a long dearth with no pollen at all, look at a high protein one.