When I tried getting off methadone with these (Transtec 40mg patches), I ended up taking 20mg sublingually, imagine that, I had pieces of the patch everywhere in my mouth under my tongue and on my gums. It takes ages to absorb this way and it's not efficient at all. I can imagine 20mg taken that way could be an equivalent to one 8mg Suboxone pill. If I were to use these again, I would simply cut a piece that I'd be interested in (perhaps even start with 0.25mg if you're opioid-naive) and put it into slightly acidic solution (citric acid should be fine) to turn buprenorphine freebase into the citrate, some heat may be needed, you will know when the adhesive layer is off the foil. Alcoholic solution will work even better in extracting buprenorphine from the patch and if you're not interested in putting alcoholic solution under your tongue, you can then boil off most of alcohol.
BTW, don't treat buprenorphine as a weaker alternative to opioids such as oxycodone or morphine. Back in the days I read about many people getting addicted to bupe here in Poland.