Although all colonies should store enough honey to last the winter months, sometimes colonies need an additional food source if necessary. A sugar candy board gives colonies access to extra nutrition.
This recipe offers a no-cook method to make sugar candy boards for bees. This technique is especially useful during Winter when you want to spur bees into building for Spring but do not want them breaking cluster.
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How to Make a Sugar Candy Board
There are various recipes online for creating candy boards. While some provide no-cook sugar bricks that you pack into feeding shims and install in the hive, others use more complex cooking techniques that produce thicker slabs of candy for bees to crawl over to feed on.
This recipe utilizes vinegar as an anti-fungal agent to prevent mold and mildew growth during winter storage of candy, while Honey B Healthy ensures bees will eat it instead of throwing it away upon spring house cleaning.
At this stage, it is ideal to add the candy board towards spring when bees may need the additional sugar to support their queen laying cycle and as moisture control, the board can absorb any condensation that might otherwise form within their hive over winter.
Ingredients
Sugar Candy Boards provide beekeepers with a fantastic supplement winter feed for their colonies’ survival in unpredictable winters, helping prevent starvation if food stores run low during a shortage.
There are various recipes for crafting sugar candy boards from wood scraps or even old beehive bodies, and both cooked and no-cook versions exist.
Cooked recipes involve heating a mixture of sugar and water until it reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer, while no-cook recipes involve pouring bag of sugar directly onto a screened candy board frame and allowing it to harden. Once this candy has hardened, it is then placed over bee clusters with hardware cloth side facing down as a replacement for their inner cover and outer cover, so bees can access its sweet nectar on warm winter days without disrupting their insulation cluster.
Preparation
Add sugar to a large container, gradually mixing in water cup by cup while stirring after each addition. You may also wish to include vinegar as an effective mold inhibitor.
Mixture should then be poured into a candy board frame that will then be installed into your hive to provide food, ventilation and an upper entrance/exit point for your honey bees.
Some beekeepers use candy boards as emergency winter food sources, not intended to replace natural honey stores but as an added resource in case the bees run short of honey stores or the weather becomes particularly extreme.
No-cook versions of candy boards are also available and easier to make, although they do not provide as much nutrition. As these may get eaten quickly by bees desperate for sustenance.
Installation
Fondant candy boards provide bees with an easier means to access extra nutrients during warmer winter days when breaking cluster. These mini bars act as an inexpensive insurance policy against colony starvation.
The Winter-Bee-Kind board insulates, ventilates, and contains pollen embedded into candy sugar as a feed stimulant for bees that need it. It should be placed above hive cluster with candy facing down; replacing inner cover. On warmer days it provides bees an exit/entrance way out to take cleansing flights.
To create a candy board, place 10 pounds of sugar into a large bowl and gradually mix in water/vinegar solution (1 cup at a time, stirring between each addition). Continue until all sugar has been coated by liquid and pour into your frame while packing tightly to dry for 24 hours before adding your candy boards into hives.
