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pollen patties for winter?

10K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  VolunteerK9 
#1 ·
Hello everyone i just went into my hive today to rearrange the frames to best suit them for the winter. I noticed there was not a huge amount of pollen inside the frames but lots and lots of honey. I was wondering how important pollen is in my climate here in the valley. If i need pollen do i feed them patties like from Mann Lake? I'm confused by patties because my understanding is the bees consume the pollen when they need it from patties not storing it, so would i wait until winter begins to add them? I've also already treated for mites with ApiGuard. I also plan on making a candyboard to place on the hive during winter. Any pointers on how to further prepare for winter would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks-
Jake
 
#2 ·
Jake, I am about an hour south of you and I am feeding patties since about the beginning of September. In our climate the bees still have a lot of brood and will have some for most of the winter. So they do need a protein source for basically the whole year. If you do not have a lot of pollen stores in the hive I would definitely put some patties on. My hives go through about one patty in two weeks right now.
I have never used a candy board - don't think that is an issue in here - like you said: lots of honey in the hive.
 
#3 ·
Bees need pollen to raise brood, and it is especially important for the so called fat bees (winter bees) and queen rearing. You need about 2 frames of pollen for a single and 4 for double deep. You can find more here.

Sounds like you need to feed some patties. You can either buy the patties pre-made or buy the dry pollen substitute and make the pattie yourself (instructions come with the bag). I have found that patties attract SHB, so make them small and thin, so the bees eat them within a week or so.
 
#4 ·
I had a pollen substitute dispenser out in the apiary since I put my hives there, and they never really touched it. Last week I sprayed it a bit with a bit of sugar syrup and a drop of lavender essential oil. Not sure if it's because of that, or just because there's just not much left blooming around here, but they seem all over it now, bringing in a bunch of that fake pollen back to the hives. Patties are more attractive, though, but I did have one case where the hive was too weak and the thing must have stayed there a while and fermented, attracting a whole bunch of undesirables into the hive (four-spotted sap beetles, mostly). Given that the SHB seems quite close to the Glischrochilus quadrisignatus I had, merince's comment about the patties attracting them does not surprise me one bit. If SHB is a problem in your area, I'd keep this in mind.
 
#5 ·
I've included a full pollen patty sheet in with my candy board that I'll be putting on in November.

The main problem I had with patties is that the bees never touched them if there was literally anything else available, so they'd just sit there and attract SHBs and other assorted grubs/larva/maggots. I figure that by the time I put the candy board in place, it should be cold enough that beetles won't be a problem and by the time the bees eat through the candy (if they need it), they should probably be happy for the patty as well.
 
#7 ·
I have a bunch of pollen patties in the freezer, but have not used them so far this year because of the SHB problem that you described. So far the bees have been bringing in a lot of pollen, but sometime around early November I will likely be putting a 10 pound block of sugar with a pollen patty, and keep my fingers crossed about the SHB's.

Phil
 
#9 ·
If there is natural pollen coming in, they probably won't touch the patties. I put some patties on a few hives the other day to see if they would use them and they are chewing them up and carrying it out of the hive, and these patties were made with 2:1 syrup and had 10% real pollen mixed in. I also tried open feeding dry substitute and they ignored it. It's because we still have some goldenrod and aster pollen coming in I assume.
 
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