>Might you speculate how patty consumption will progress after reliable pollen and forage weather arrives (roughly a month away in these parts)?  Do you anticipate the bees will continue to "inhale" once natural pollen and pleasant weather arrives?  I fed my first patties on 3/14-15 and checked again this past weekend.  I was surprised to find that at least half of my hives were in need of another pattie.  I don't expect I'll be splitting until the third week in April and am wondering how to budget my provisions.

Well, the pictures on yesterday's diary explain best what I am seeing, but here is a summary and a wild guess...

A few hives ate less than one whole patty, but I was expecting to be going away for a month and I had put four or five patties on the best ones to make sure they did not run out.

I did not go away as expected -- something came up -- and I checked back yesterday.  On several of the best hives -- eleven days after putting patties on -- all that remained of the four or five pounds was an ounce or so at two outer corners, and a little paper.

Now, I have seen hives slurp up syrup in outside feeders in March, then taper back in April as the populations changed over, so just extrapolating the current consumption is risky, but that is my best guess -- that the curent trend will continue.

Thus, I'm guessing an average consumption of a pound a week per hive, average as long as I feed the patties

I figure that is pretty safe bet, even if pollen starts coming in.  

Last summer, my splits averaged a pound of patty a week all August, even in the midst of a honey flow.  Granted, they were on alfalfa, though, and perhaps a little pollen short, but they kept on eating even with pollen coming in.

My policy is to always keep one more patty on each hive than they seeem to need.  It does not go bad, and actually softens up a bit -- and I am often surprised at what part of the patties gets eaten.  I expect the consumption to be directly above the brood, but it can be hard to guess where the brood will be an a week or two.

Personally, I don't conserve the patties.  I feed all they will take plus some and then just go for more.

Patties are so much cheaper than buying nucs and packages, and splitting strong hives of healthy bees is more certain to work out than relying on bee suppliers who may run into problems delivering quality stock on time.

The money I save on buying bees I plan to spend on buying premium queens, although I may have to raise some queens, too.

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