Pollen Patties Provide Winter Honey Bee Food - from Dadant

Winter pollen patties are one form of winter food beekeepers place inside the bee hive to keep the colony alive and fed during the colder winter months.
Our hive was opened with temperatures at 37° F - just warm enough to move quickly and place more pollen patties inside. As you can see there are thousands of bees alive and moving vigorously inside the top brood box.
We have an inner cover board, with a larger hole in the it's center, that allows excess moisture to rise up and dissipate away from the bees under the cover board. There are still two pollen patties still in place from the prior week, so we added one more winter patty and closed up the hive. This will be the challenging two-week stretch when ambient temperatures fall below zero, and can wipe out the bees quickly if they do not form into their winter cluster to retain and generate heat.
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