I never consider the fact that they failed to consume all of the patty an important factor.
Brian, alltogether you want to missunderdstand my message. That is pity for those who want to learn patty feeding.
What I am saying is that there are many kind of pollen patty, even I have when I mix stuff. I have made pollen cakes and pollen patty 16 years. I have really trained it. When I drive car 200 miles to my bee yard, I don't want to drive vainly. And I like that when I come again aften one week, bees have consumed all. To drive car is as expencive as patty stuff. One spring I feeded 160 lbs irradiated pollen and then I found yeast and soyaflour. It is expencive.
* bees love some kind of patties and some not
* some they cannot eat because it is too hard to bite. Moisture is the key factor; does patty catch moisture from hive air or not!
* some are not tasty if there is under 20% pollen.
You cannot force them to anything. They stop if they stop. But if you give water onto pollen patty, you se at once that they start to eat it.
So you find that it was too dry.
Cindy says that best is when you mix pollen and sugar. That is not true at all.
MIchael says that you need not grease paper - that is not true. What a mesh when patty goes onto bottom board, and if it it too hard, bees cannot bite it.
You need not that and and that . It is vain to give a good recipe when all are ready to twist that whatever, even if they do not know what is the idea.
Protein: that is but in fact it is collection of aminoacids what bees need. And vitamins too.
. Once the hive as availability to natural pollen, in sufficient quantities they will stop feeding on the patty. That's as it should be and is preferrable.
That happened to me 10 years when I feeded pollen and honey mixture. But when I learned to make better patty, they eated it even if they got natural pollen. And idea is that in my country thera are bad weathers and often it takes one week that bees are able to gather poollen outside. When brood area in almost 2 box they need every day huge measure pollen : Hatched bees need it and larvae.
Also, if there is a lot of pollen early in the year, feeding patties may not be necessary at all.
Every one knows that bees do not need patty. When you want to feed them with patyy, that is not the answer.
if there is a lot of pollen early in the year when I start to feed bees with patty, snow is still on ground and pollen will be after 3 weeks.
I do not know how weather develope after that. But after my 45 years experience I know that first pollen month is such a like that bees can go out or cannot. No one knows when you start feeding. And when I give the load of patty to bees, I am working in capital city during week and I am not quarding bees there. I load hives with patty, what ever it happnes.
Of course when they stop eating patty, I must stop it. Every one understand this.
In my country beekeepers resist patty feeding because they don't want to know what is idea. But they all are such opinion that sugar is enough to accelerate brood rearing.
To get pollen enough - yes, that is the question, but what is enough. That is endless argue.
I have found in practice that in internet you get good feeding recipes but in beekeeping forums recipes are quickly destroyed with all kind of opinions.
I have got my nowaday's recipes from researches but for 10 years I did my own.
And best recipes originates from US universities. Idea is not mine. .