Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com>]

Hey Donna,

I've never made or used fondant --- it seems like too much trouble and it's not necessary. But I've seen lots of recipes, one usually telling you to never put in it what the other says to use, and vice versa. The whole point is to make a somewhat soft (not brick hard) sugar cake. Other than that, I would keep it as simple as possible. You do want to avoid "indigestibles" such as caramelized sugar etc. so your bees don't get dysentery. Purely based on my assumptions deduced from reading (not on my experience), it seems fondant is used primarily as emergency feeding, and is primarily used in regions much colder than ours.

The calendar says fall goes from mid September to mid December, so the term "autumn" is pretty useless for us, since that can span the whole range of temperatures & floral stages. I think it is more useful to think not in terms of the human calendar but in terms of the honey bee calendar. For us in Piedmont NC, September/October brings a moderately sized honey flow that is supposed to sustain our bees through the winter. This either tapers off or is cut short by a hard frost. Inside the hive, the bees are packing away honey as fast as they can. The queen is slowing down her laying and will stop altogether around November/December. The bees that emerge in October are the ones that will over-winter and kick everything off again in spring.

When the temperature drops into the mid 50's, the bees stop foraging and begin to form a cluster to generate warmth in the hive. The colder it gets, the tighter the cluster. A tight cluster can move as a mass across the combs to new honey areas that are immediately adjacent to whether they are, but they don't jump empty comb. Bees can starve in a hive with lots of honey that is just inches away from the cluster. That's why it is important to have wall-to-wall honey as the bees go into winter.

The queen starts laying again in mid/late January, within the cluster. Maple trees begin blooming about this time and on warm days the bees will forage for pollen.

An important point for us to remember here in the Piedmont is that even in January and February, we often have a few nice days scattered here and there. The bees won't be in a tight cluster the entire winter. So it is possible to feed sugar syrup in the winter and during a warm(er) spell since the bees will loosen their cluster and be able to access it. That makes feeding fondant less important for us than it may be elsewhere. As far as being too cold to open the hive: a blast of cold air will not kill adult bees, but starvation definitely will. You don't want to pull out frames and do a full inspection in cold weather but removing the lid to put on a feeder isn't a problem.

We would like to feed sugar syrup early enough so the bees have plenty of time to cure and cap it, that is, while they are still fully active before going into a cluster. Last-minute feeding isn't ideal but we work with what we've got! You need your hives to be heavy (lift them up an inch or so from the back to assess the weight). If you are pouring the syrup on like crazy and the bees just simply don't put on weight, you may just have crappy bees who deserve to starve. These things happen.

Whether you want to do stimulative feeding in the late winter (human calendar) should depend on your goals. If you are going to ship bees to California to pollinate almonds, you must do stimulative feeding (pollen and syrup). But if you are like me and you keep bees primarily for enjoyment, you don't need to jazz them up ahead of our spring honey flow. If you pump them up too early, you risk having a very large bee population that the flowering season isn't ready to support, and they'll either starve or you'll spend lots of unnecessary money on sugar. And you'll be fighting swarming early on. However, even if you don't do stimulative feeding per se, you should monitor the weight of your hives all the way up to when tulip poplar begins blooming (mid April), and feed if they are light. Lots of bees starve in March --- their populations are on the upswing right when our floral sources make a major temporary downswing.

About your sugar syrup crystallizing --- I don't have this problem. I bring water to a full boil, then pour it over sugar in another container and stir it until it all dissolves. If it goes into solution it stays in solution. Maybe your water isn't hot enough or you've got too much sugar?

Randall

On 10/27/2012 9:08 PM, donnasteen AT yahoo.com wrote:

1351386521.13290.YahooMailNeo AT web125401.mail.ne1.yahoo.com" type="cite">

Does anyone know how to make fondant for bees to eat during the winter?

I've researched on the internet, and in one of my books, but there are conflicting reports.

One site says NEVER use Karo syrup. Yet the book says the fondant you buy is sugar and high fructose corn syrup (Karo syrup?)
I have seen numerous recipes--some with a long list of ingredients.
Several say adding Thymol or surgical spirit can prevent mold which can wipe out the bees.  But I question if this is necessary.

What I have read talks of feeding in "late Autumn" a 2:1 sugar syrup.  But what is considered "late Autumn?"
For winter they recommend Fondant.  But when does "winter" start? Isn't it too cold then to open a hive? And when does "winter" feed end and "spring" feed begin.  Seems like the queen starts laying in Feb. or March.  Can still be too cold to get into the hives?????

My hives are very weak and will need to be fed from now on, so that is why I am asking.
And when would I switch to a "spring" feed to stimulate brood growth and cell production. 

One last question:  Is there some way of making sugar syrup so it doesn't crystallize.  My last batch crystallized over night.

Thanks for your help.
Donna Steen  

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