Poorly chicken

[hilda-and-evadne]

I am a first-year bee-keeper, with one National hive, and trying to make sense of what I find on the web about fondant. Does one

 

* put it on top of the crown board, so as not to disturb the bees and/or let in cold air,

and push it slightly through one of the holes? or

 

* put it directly on top of the frames and push it down slightly? or

 

* use an eke?

 

Also not clear about amount of fondant. One person writes on the web that s/he buys a 12.5kg block, cuts it into three and uses it a third at a time. Is that what others do?

 

Thanks for any advice.

[Old Speckled Hen]

First.

Do you need to give fondant?

Are your bees short of stores?

The way I do it is to have a crownboard with a hole. Put some fondant in an ice cream tub ( I use old carte d'or as they are a good size) cover in cling film(it stops it sticking to the board and makes for easy removal and/or change),either making a hole in it to correspond to your crownboard hole or just slashing it in a few places.

Place over the hole.

You can see how it is being taken and the container stops it from drying out.

You should have insulation over the colony. I use 50mm Kingspan (expanded polystyrene insulation) with a carte d'or size cut out then put another sheet of kingspan on top of that. The whole thing fits really nicely in a super.

 

Some people do this

 

 

 

Instead of feeding syrup in the autumn. In which case the whole block of fondant is split down the middle and put on top of an excluder

[Old Speckled Hen]

Well................................

Having had only the one reply....what did you do in the end?

[hilda-and-evadne]

Well................................

Having had only the one reply....what did you do in the end?

 

After discussing it with the Government bee inspector who runs the Co-op sponsored bee-keeping course I am part of, I put one 2.5kg packet of fondant (slashed carefully on the underside) over one hole in the crown board - so that I didn't have to open the hive and let cold air in - and placed an eke above the crown board and then replaced the roof.

 

While I was out with the hens on Boxing Day, and the air temperature was about 13 degrees C, I saw bees flying for the first time for weeks, from about 9.30am to 2.00pm.

[MedusA]

I buy a big block and cut it up into slices that fit in those plastic "Chinese" containers. I put on one at a time and it gives me a more accurate picture of how much the bees are taking. I cut a container-shaped hole in the centre of a block of 50mm polystyrene and put that inside an eke with bubble wrap over the fondant container and then the roof.

 

They have definitely needed the fondant as we had quite a wasp problem robbing the hives of winter stores due to the mild weather.

 

My bees have been flying quite a lot this winter, unlike last year!

[Chicken Licken]

I fed ours today, one hive was very busy on the aconites and snowdrops, the other was not. I find it hard to guage how much stores they have left, so decided it was better to feed than to risk them fading away. The hive with no signs of life quickly became full of life once I had unblocked the hole in the crownboard to put the fondant on - so good news that they have both overwintered thus far.

[Old Speckled Hen]

Good to hear.

I think hefting is a matter of practice but like you I find it difficult.

I weigh my hives with a spring balance lifting two opposite sides up and adding the two together.

All three of my colonies were out collecting snowdrop pollen today;lovely to see.

[Old Speckled Hen]

Just to add that I weighed two hives (third has fondant on already so I just look at that) and one has consumed 3.5 lb of stores in one week and the other just 1. This last colony has a polycarbonate crown board on so I can actually see the stores. Most of the tops of the frames are empty there are eight frames of bees so I must assume that the lack of weight loss must be due to brood.

Fondant on tomorrow then.