It seems that most of you think a candy board is better that syrup for winter feed and I have seen a couple of people who posted they use dry sugar above the inner cover. If we rule out syrup because of the possible moisture problem which would then become the better alternative, a candy board or the dry sugar above the inner cover? I have one hive that will probably not make it with out a little feeding. I really don't want to combine it with another of my hives and I don't want to rob the other three of stores.
Quote from: Romahawk on November 12, 2006, 01:37:33 PM
If we rule out syrup because of the possible moisture problem which would then become the better alternative, a candy board or the dry sugar above the inner cover?
Impossible to understand this idea. Bees consume 40 lbs sugar or honey during winter in my country. It is same what bee uses the sugar turns to water and carbon diokside when it burns in respiration. And if bees eat dry sugar, it generates same volume of water.
How do you put 40 lbs dry sugar on the top of hive? It makes two buckets.
What do you have in combs? honey or air. Do you put a little sugar on inner cover but truly bees eat honey from combs? So you have a hole in inner cover which ventilates moist air from hive. You may do the hole in front wall and bees go fine.
Moist air makes no problems to bees if you give to colony proper veltilation. There is no need to feed them all the time across winter and across summer.
I've never done a candy board. I've fed a bit of dry sugar to nucs before, but never to a hive.
Syrup is what you use to build stores when it's warm enough for them to put it away. Sugar or candy is starvation food to keep them from dying because you DIDN'T get them enough stores for the winter. They will not take it, they will only eat it when they are starving. BUT they CAN eat sugar when it's cold and they can't take syrup when it's cold.
Neither is better. The difference is the method of delivery to the bees. Dry sugar on top of the inner cover requires temperatures warm enough for the bees to break cluster to get it(as would candy unless it is placed directly over the innercover hole). Candy can be placed right on the top of the frames so as the bees run low on food and progress up the hive, they will move right onto the candy. You can also put newspaper on top of the frames with slits in it and then put dry sugar.
Although the candy is a little bit more work to do, it is a lot easier to feed and clean up. What they don't use can easily be removed and stored, whereas dry sugar is not so easy to take back :?
Robo, why don't you feed hives into combs enough? So you need not to play with solid sugar.
My temperatures here will be in the 40 to 50 degree range for the next week. Will bees take syrup at those temperatures or is it to late for that? If not it sounds like the candy board on top of the frames may be what I will try.
Quote from: Michael Bush on November 12, 2006, 02:18:02 PM
Sugar or candy is starvation food to keep them from dying because you DIDN'T get them enough stores for the winter.
That's the reason I put a sugar board on my hives, with 10 -- 15 lbs. of candy in them. It's my understanding that a colony will use more food during a mild winter than during a colder one, because they will be more active and in a less tight cluster. In New Jersey, it's less cold than in Finland. :-D I usually get a hive full of syrup before winter sets in, but you never know whether they'll be flying in mid-January, or what. If the board has candy left in it, I've wrapped it in plastic to keep the ants out and used it again the next year.
-- Kris
Bees will begin to move around (Break cluster) in the hive when temperatures rise above 45 degrees F, usually for more than just a single day. Once bees begin to move around after a prolonged period of cluster they may go into a premature spring mode which will use up the stores in a hurry as the bees begin rearing brood. In this case it becomes necessary to feed to keep a hive that was thought to have sufficient stores in the fall alive until spring.
We have had already snow cover 3 weeks.
But would you imagine that bee and their habits have not developed in Finland. Bee's origin is In Africa and it sread to North up to Germany. In Finland it has never been natural honey bees.
The habit that bees gather honey and cap it in combs have developed in southern climate, the level of Texas or something. There are dry seasons and winters and rains, why honey bee make it's stores.
No one has gived candy or dry sugar to bees 100 years ago. I read from 150 year old German arvice how to avoid if bees have not enough food after winter: Boil carrots and give juice to bees.
My Great-Grandfather, 1867 to 1949, used to use Beet juice.
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on November 15, 2006, 02:25:25 AM
My Great-Grandfather, 1867 to 1949, used to use Beet juice.
Was it sugar beet? Here it is said that normal sugar content is 17%.
http://www.sucrose.com/learn.html#s2
RAISE YOUR OWN WINTER SUGAR FOR BEES! expected sugar production is only about 7 tons per hectare. When you have 10 m x 10 m plot, you get 70 kg sugar.
Quote from: Brian D. Bray on November 15, 2006, 02:25:25 AM
My Great-Grandfather, 1867 to 1949, used to use Beet juice.
Some intereting stuff about juices for bees. I have an enormous amount of beets that I just pulled out of my garden a couple of days ago. I have frozen, canned, dehydrated so many beets already, that I was at a loss of what to do with the excess beets. I only like to have enough vegetables stored of any variety for one year, whichever way I preserve, so I was wondering what to do with the excess of beets. I know that every year come the end of summer I will have new and fresh vegetables for storage for the next season. So, I need to know, how were the bees fed the juice, poured into combs, I imagine that this could be found on the internet somewhere, but let's go right to the source of our great grandparents and find out if someone down through the ages remembers these informations. Beets are probably one of the most sweetest and yummy vegetables, other than certain cultivars of carrots for sure. Cindi
Sugar beets only vaguely resemble red beets. The sugar content is dramatically differernt
Quote from: Michael Bush on November 15, 2006, 09:08:44 PM
Sugar beets only vaguely resemble red beets. The sugar content is dramatically differernt
Yikes!!! and I thought a beet was a beet. I will investigate procedure on how to get nourishment for the bees from these beets. I looked up the sugar beet on the net and man they really are different than our regular red beets. I see that they are white and enormous, weighing 2 pounds and up, probably to about 5 pounds or so, and the root can be a foot long, Wow. I see that the beet can contain 18% sugar or so. Amazing. I am going to obtain seed for the sugar beet and grow a harvest here. I see it matures within about 100 days or so. We have a long growing season here. We can even begin planting some things as early as February/March, and our killing frosts don't usually come until the last part of October. Then it mostly is rainy, not an awful lot of freezing temps, our coldest month is January, at which time we can have quite a few cold frozen days. Cindi
you probably have red beets
http://www.storzek.net/cebelarstvo-ma-ja/
search for: "Pridelava meda v satju s sokom rdeče pese"
pictures don't speak for themselves so...
short and laic translation would be, squize the red beet juice, mix it with honey, feed it to bees, and you have red beet juice powered honey which is good for your heart, nervous system, against astma and bronhitis. i think it is also said to be good against cancer.
don't know about you, but sugar beets is out of the question for me, since it is harvested..i think in october, anyway, to late, bees are supposed to be fed by then
Cindi, sugar beets are big and brown, and around the size of a football. Just not bee food for the average beek. They also wont fit in a blender, so forget about that idea. They have been grown in our area for years, and are big ol ugly things with a very long growing season. Definitely not a home garden vegetable. They look like a potato on steroids. Yeccch!
Jeff
Quote from: Jeff L on November 18, 2006, 12:32:28 AM
Cindi, sugar beets are big and brown, and around the size of a football. Just not bee food for the average beek. They also wont fit in a blender, so forget about that idea. They have been grown in our area for years, and are big ol ugly things with a very long growing season. Definitely not a home garden vegetable. They look like a potato on steroids. Yeccch!
Jeff
Jeff, ha, ha, your comments give me an enormous desire to try to grow sugar beets. I have room to grow anything that I want at my place, I have very fertile ground everywhere. I live on 5 acres and am cultivating more and more areas every year. You actually would not believe the cultivation that I have done, along with my Sister. she lives on our property with her 6 kids, kind of subdivided I guess, she is an avid gardener too, also a builder, she builds, works the land, and I work the land and the bees. We have fun, everyone thinks stuff is work, but I always say I am going outside to have some fun, and fun it is!!! We use turkey manure for our fertilizing needs, along with compost. So I imagine we can find a way to grow these beets that are the size of footballs! Can't wait. I think our growing season would be certainly long enough, our last frost date is April 30 (but I always plant long before that) and our first killing frost is not generally until maybe the third week of October. That gives a great long time to grow stuff. Awesom day!!! Cindi
Cindi, more power to ya! I also enjoy growing things just for the heck of it. I come from a rice farming background here in CA, and we leased our ground to beet growers for years until the Spreckles Sugar facility went under. In our soil they have a very long growing season due to the fact it's a hard clay soil and it takes the beets longer to form. Almost an annual here. In softer soils the growing season is around 150 days I think. So you could do it, no problem. They sure look like a giant potato, inside and out, when harvested. Maybe you could make fries, mash them, get sugar from them, or give them to your neighbors. Who knows. Good luck and have fun huh!! I enjoy your posts!
Jeff
Indeed, aren't the posts so much fun. Did your family grow different kinds of rice. You get to get right inside all the fun stuff that people enjoy, having fun is great stuff. I WILL GROW THE BEETS!! AND I WILL WORK HARD TO USE THE BIPRODUCT FOR MY GIRLS. I am planning on sowing mega amounts of so many annuals, as well as cuttings from my perennials to get forage for the girls that I love dearly. I hear mustard is an incredible plant. I plan on sowing brocooli everywhere, I will harvest the main bud to eat, and let all the rest go to seed. I should bring a photo to show how the bees forage on the flowers of the brocolli. All is good. I am intending to grow Lobelia in a big way, I have seen how the bees love the Crystal Palace. Great forage plant. Does anyone know statistics about the pollen/nectar of this annual.????Cindi
here in michigan alot of hunters use sugar beet for deer bait. you can get a pick up load for about $25.00 that is a lot of sugar. and the deer go's crazy for them.
Turnips and buckwheat are nice. So are chicory, goldenrod and asters. Then there is anise hissop.
Quote from: Michael Bush on November 19, 2006, 11:23:26 AM
Turnips and buckwheat are nice. So are chicory, goldenrod and asters. Then there is anise hissop.
Did grow buckwheat this past summer, pretty plant, I understand it produces nectar in the morning and late afternoon, it was really busy with bees in the morning for sure. Grow lots of Anise Hyssop, I have several mother plants of the anise and I take many, many cuttings from them and grow on the young plants. It is surprising how year after year there are so many many more "mothers" (LOL). It is good because the mother plants bloom about at least a month or more before the baby plants bloom. Hence, there is an extremely long flowering season for the hyssop, it seems to go on forever. I love to to be near these plants to see the thousands of bees enjoying the nectar and pollen, the licorice fragrance that perfumes the air is something to behold. I have never let turnip go to flower yet, but that is a great idea, I would imagine the flowers are yellow, as so many in that family. I have not grown chicory, unknown to me, no goldenrod, but lots of asters. Asters are a beautiful fall plant, yup the bees go nuts on this one too. It is fun to learn about plants that are great for bees. I think that on this website there is a forum on bee plants, not sure, but I think I saw it listed, I am going to check it out for sure. Great day!! Cindi
Cindi, we have a large 200 acre field that when it's not in wheat due to low wheat prices, it becomes a Mustard field due to the fact that Mustard is the main weed there, and drops seed like crazy. When it blooms yellow the Russian and Ukranian beeks in the area come and ask if they can set their hives out until these plants stop flowering. So this may be another 'girl' food for you. Remember though, it does reseed profusely and gets quite tall.
Jeff
One more quick question on candy boards. Do I really need to boil the water and sugar or can I just add enough cold water to make a paste and dump it in a mold to harden. Hate to get my turkey roaster all sticky. :lol:
Quote from: Romahawk on November 22, 2006, 06:07:29 PM
One more quick question on candy boards. Do I really need to boil the water and sugar or can I just add enough cold water to make a paste and dump it in a mold to harden. Hate to get my turkey roaster all sticky. :lol:
I am not a pro, but I think that making the sugar board candy is somewhat like making candy period. It must be cooked to the "soft-crack" stage, which is 270 degrees F. This takes a few minutes, surely, but must be up to temperature. This makes the "candy", whether it is home made English Toffee, (that's my expertise and everyone loves to eat it) or sugar board candy go hard, (almost like a rock)!! LOL. If it does not get up close to this temperature, it will not go really rock hard. With the English toffee, cream of tartar is used for getting the candy to go hard (I think that is the purpose). With the sugar board candy, vinegar is used to set it, from what I understand. I would imagine that cream of tartar could be used instead of vinegar, but vinegar seems to be the most widely used. Can't you cook it in a pot? I cook mine in my cookware and it just washes out very easily. Great day. Cindi
Quote from: Cindi on November 22, 2006, 06:29:08 PM
I am not a pro, but I think that making the sugar board candy is somewhat like making candy period.
Exactly :-D
Though you don't need to go to 270 degrees, you at least want to go to 240. The higher the temperature you go, the harder the candy will be and the less likely it will be to crumble when it absorbs moisture from the colony. Don't go too high and carmelize it though.
Be careful with cream of tartar, I believe I read somewhere that it wasn't good for the bees, but don't quote me on that. Do some research before using it.
Quote from: Robo on November 22, 2006, 09:54:08 PM
Quote from: Cindi on November 22, 2006, 06:29:08 PM
I am not a pro, but I think that making the sugar board candy is somewhat like making candy period.
Exactly :-D
Though you don't need to go to 270 degrees, you at least want to go to 240. The higher the temperature you go, the harder the candy will be and the less likely it will be to crumble when it absorbs moisture from the colony. Don't go too high and carmelize it though.
Be careful with cream of tartar, I believe I read somewhere that it wasn't good for the bees, but don't quote me on that. Do some research before using it.
Robo, I will be careful with the cream of tartar, it may be bad for the bees, but I think that I read somewhere in the initial beginnings of this candy board post, that cream of tartar may have been used, I will review and research for sure. Robo, now an interesting point with the temperature with the sugar and the hardness of the end product. When you make your candy, do you always/never watch the temperature of the candy mixture. I would be interested because of my experience that follows with temperature. Maybe using cream of tartar is different than vinegar, but maybe they both provide a similar outcome with "candy" products. Food for thought. I thought that today I would do an experiment and cook my English toffee to a little lower degree than what I normally cook it to to see how it turned out. (when today's toffee was cooled enough to eat, some thought it awesome, better than usual, some thought I should go back to cooking it longer) LOL. I wanted to try this because my toffee is always rock hard, and when it is cool, if you hit it with a knife or another object, it breaks into wonderful chunks that are rock hard and about bite size,(depending upon the size of the mouth of course), but does get so chewy from the warmth in your mouth when you eat it, yum, yum. I thought that if I cooked it to just below the soft-crack stage that it might be not rock hard, but simply just chewy. Ha. Anyways, I normally cook the toffee to 270 degrees F, but wanting a softer toffee, I cooked it only to about 265 degrees F. The toffee looked lighter in the pot than when it is cooked to 270 degrees. I poured the toffee out on a buttered pan and waited until it cooled off to handle it. When I went to score the toffee, this toffee had the texture of fudge. Hmm....absolutely no hard texture whatsoever. (I am going to experiment tomorrow and cook some more toffee and bring the toffee temperature up to 268 and see what happens). If this stage of hardening iat 265 degrees, using cream of tartar, is anything similar to that when one uses the sugar board candy using vinegar, if it was attempted to be fed to the bees, it would turn into a crumbly, mucky mess and would fall through the hardware mesh that is in place on the bottom of the sugar board to prevent the candy from falling through onto the hive. I am of the belief that it must be cooked to 270 degrees so that it is very hard, but again, tomorrow we will see what temperature of 268 brings to the texture of my toffee. this is an interesting point on how sugar (and other ingredients) and change their own physical appearance, it is like putting on a wig or makeup, LOL. great day. Cindi. Hope all what I have said makes sense.
Hi Cindi,
There is a science to candy making, and I don't have it down. Mainly because I'm impatient and the bees aren't fussy. I do watch the temperature, but usually get busy doing other things so I'm not very consistant about it. I usually try to get it between 260 & 270, but then again, I'm not sure how acturate my candy thermometer is either. I have never had a problem with it crumbling thru the hardware cloth. What usually happens is the bees eat around the edges and center first (where the moisture condenses) and them sometimes it will crack into hand size pieces.
I wonder if the butter in your toffee is not causing the results you are seeing :?
Quote from: Robo on November 23, 2006, 09:04:14 AM
Hi Cindi,
There is a science to candy making, and I don't have it down. Mainly because I'm impatient and the bees aren't fussy. I do watch the temperature, but usually get busy doing other things so I'm not very consistant about it. I usually try to get it between 260 & 270, but then again, I'm not sure how acturate my candy thermometer is either. I have never had a problem with it crumbling thru the hardware cloth. What usually happens is the bees eat around the edges and center first (where the moisture condenses) and them sometimes it will crack into hand size pieces.
I wonder if the butter in your toffee is not causing the results you are seeing :?
Robo, Ha!!! Ya, I bet you are right!!! Toffee does indeed have butter in it. I know there is a science to candy making and I do not have it down either, at all, I only dabble a little with this yummy stuff. I bet anything that probably that the addition of butter would make an emormous difference in the stage of hardening of candy when it is cooked. I am kindo of an experimenter on things. I am going to make some candy board sugar (I need to anyways) and fiddle around with cooking temperatures. My thermometer is probably pretty good, as I have a digital one. It has been a wonderful investment for me personaly. I used to have the thermometer that was in a glass shaft, and it really is hard to read sometimes with the condensation on the glass and all,so I got fed up and bought a digital one that iis kind of like a meat thermometer, easy to read. I would be really curious for my own sake to see what temperature this product will actually harden at, just for my own fun. Great day. Cindi
QuoteCan't you cook it in a pot? I cook mine in my cookware and it just washes out very easily. Great day. Cindi
Me try to whip up something in my wifes good cookware....... :?
Nope I'll get my old turkey cooker out and go outside to experiment with the bee candy.... Much safer.... :-D