Beekeepers sometimes need to supplement hives’ honey production in the winter with additional sugar through various means; feeding dry sugar directly, or creating solid feed such as cakes, fondant or candy boards may all work effectively.
Both methods involve placing food above clustering bees so they can slowly digest it with their own moisture.
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1. Sugar Cakes
Feeding bees dry sugar during winter can help weak colonies survive harsher weather, providing them with extra nourishment when honey can become scarce.
Granulated white table sugar is the most prevalent dry sugar product. Bees create partial syrup from sugar crystals dissolved by their nectar.
Medium to strong colonies can use condensation from inside their hive as well as outside sources to gather moisture for nourishment, or feed dry sugar throughout winter provided there is sufficient moisture in their environment.
Sugar cakes are an easy and cost-effective way to feed my bees during the winter season. Just a few ingredients and supplies are necessary.
2. Candy Boards
Candy boards are an easy and cost-effective way to provide bees with emergency food during winter. Simply create them, using an open hole so the bees can access it easily.
Frame feeders, available at most bee stores, allow for convenient feeding of frames inside a hive.
Candy boards should be installed during fall or winter, depending on your hive’s level of honey stores and brood rearing activity. At this time, nurse bee numbers can increase and brood rearing rates may improve significantly.
Candy boards can help to absorb moisture that gathers on top of a hive due to condensation from cold outside air and warm inside bees, and help the bees in digesting sugar for consumption by the bees. Furthermore, this moisture prevents it from drying out the hive and making it vulnerable to pests. You can purchase or build one yourself out of wood.
3. Fondant
Fondant, the soft and irresistibly tasty material used to decorate cakes, can also serve as an effective means of feeding dry sugar to bees during winter. Like candy, fondant can be made using gelatine, corn syrup, glycerine, shortening (or butter) fat and confectioners’ sugar as ingredients.
Recipe details: Simply mix one packet of gelatine with cold water until dissolved, heat the mixture until it reaches 235degF or soft ball temperature, add other ingredients as desired, and allow it to cool before feeding it directly to bees.
Some beekeepers like to place fondant on their crown boards all winter, making it easily accessible should it become necessary. Others prefer checking their colonies regularly and feeding as and when necessary.
Alternative method for feeding bees dry sugar is using inverted containers. These could include any container holding liquid such as a quart jar, paint can, pail or one liter bottle that remains upright after it has been inverted upside down. Bees will use their breath moisture to slowly dissolve sugar through respiration.
4. Syrup
White table sugar and water syrup is an excellent emergency food source for bees during winter when their stores of honey become low, or to encourage brood rearing in weak colonies. It also can boost brood rearing rates or support honey production by supporting brood rearing and replenishing stores for an ailing colony.
Create a simple syrup of water and sugar by combining these two ingredients and heating until all of the crystals have disintegrated. Be careful when selecting your heat source as too high heat may cause it to boil over.
Combine syrup in a ratio of two parts sugar to one part water by weight or volume for safe bee consumption that’s also highly palatable.
The syrup can be stored in either a shallow super or on the hive and covered with a hive cover to prevent access from robbers. For extra security, grass straw or wood straw could be added into the syrup to discourage thieves.
