QuebecBees · Quebec, CA · Beginners · Sep 13, 2026
Pollen patties in September — do they build better winter bees, or a waste when natural pollen is pouring in?
Question for the nutrition-minded people. Twelve hives in Quebec, goldenrod and aster pollen coming in by the basketful right now — the frames around the brood look like a paint chart. At the club meeting half the room said they put pollen patties on in September "for the winter bees" and the other half said that's marketing.
My understanding is that winter bee fat bodies come from good protein nutrition during the weeks they're reared, mid-August to late September here. What I can't work out is whether a patty adds anything when the natural pollen is this good, or whether the bees just eat the natural stuff and let the patty go mouldy. Where I could see it mattering is a dry year, or a yard with poor fall forage.
Has anyone actually compared? I'm not against spending the money, I'm against spending it for nothing. Beginner-level answers welcome, I'm asking on behalf of the room.
Your understanding is correct, and so is your instinct. When natural pollen is coming in strongly, colonies largely ignore a patty or take it slowly, and the winter bees are built from the goldenrod. A substitute is a replacement for missing pollen, not a supplement to good pollen; no patty is as good as a diverse natural income. Where I use it: dry Septembers when the meadows are burnt off, or a yard I know has poor autumn forage. Otherwise, save the money and put it in sugar.
GeorgiaWes · Sep 13, 2026
Georgia answer is the same, with an extra warning: down here an uneaten patty in September is a small hive beetle nursery within a week. You don't have that problem in Quebec, but a moldy patty on a shrinking cluster isn't good anywhere. If you do feed protein, a thin strip they'll finish in a few days, not a slab. Where patties genuinely earn their keep for me is late winter, six weeks before the first natural pollen, to get brood going.
AbejaMiguel · Sep 14, 2026
Jalisco is the mirror image: the rains give us pollen everywhere right now, so nobody feeds protein. The dry season, March to May, is when I use substitute, and the colonies that get it build faster for the first flow. So the answer depends entirely on what's coming through the entrance, not the month on the calendar.
BethsBees · Sep 14, 2026
Ontario, and we had exactly this argument at my club. One thing someone raised that I couldn't answer: is diversity part of it? Goldenrod is supposedly decent protein, but if that's ALL they get, is that worse than mixed? Or is that overthinking a colony with a paint-chart brood frame like QuebecBees describes?