Winter feeding: fondant or table sugar?

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Winter will be upon soon.  I would like to elicits comments of above subject: fondant or table sugar.  In the past I have used fondant with good success, EXCEPT for last year.  I did lose a hive to condensation that formed on the wax paper holding the fondant.  Sixteen hives I fed fondant on wax paper above half way over the cluster.  Fifteen hives did fine, however #16, my biggest cluster generated enough heat that moisture formed and I was sick when I discovered my error that caused wet frozen bees and subsequent condensation kill.

The lid was vented but the bees usually seal the vent.  Ventilation is another subject as I wish explore your views on sugar versus fondant.  Sugar absorbes moisture which has advantages.  The method is referred to as THE MOUNTAIN CAMP method.  I have never fed raw solid sugar to my bees.  I always diluted to make syrup in warm months or make fondant for winter months.

My best hives will receive a winter board, burlap for moisture absorbtion and fondant or sugar.  I am trying to figure which is best fondant or table sugar.

My support hives,,,, well,,,, I am leaning towards sugar placed on the inner partition.  But I would like input of feeding sugar, as I stated I have no experience with solid sugar, which is much cheaper, easier to use than fondant.

For your info, I am a hobbyist with about 20 backyard hives, Itialian mutts.  I community feed sub pollen year round.
Blessings

[BeeMaster2]

Van,
In the past I was not a big supporter of feeding. I am slowly changing that. I tried mountain camp several years ago. The bees removed it from the top and put it in the tray below.
They do not do that with fondant.
Jim

[AR Beekeeper]

I am one of those that believe the best food for wintering is sugar, made into a thick syrup, and fed until the combs are filled.  I have emergency fed dry sugar to a few 5 frame nucs, but I think it is not a very efficient method of feeding.  If sufficient syrup is fed there will be no need for dry sugar or fondant feeding.

Van, I'll see you at the meeting Monday night, this will be the last until next January.  You can tell me all about the bear problem.  See you.
 

[blackforest beekeeper]

I am one of those that believe the best food for wintering is sugar, made into a thick syrup, and fed until the combs are filled.  I have emergency fed dry sugar to a few 5 frame nucs, but I think it is not a very efficient method of feeding.  If sufficient syrup is fed there will be no need for dry sugar or fondant feeding.

Van, I'll see you at the meeting Monday night, this will be the last until next January.  You can tell me all about the bear problem.  See you.

To be honest, I am surprised to the idea of keeping open feed in the hive during winter. Feeding up with sugar syrup or whatever so there is enough winter supplies in the hive is the only way I would do it. Never heard of this, either. I have the European literature on bees about thru...
Dry sugar and maybe fondant have not been worked on by the bees, while they have converted everything in the comb in a way they can use it like honey. Right away. And they dont need water for that, either.
why would there be a need for NOT letting them store enough in the combs? Esp. two deeps. There can be enough feed in the combs to sustain any colony during just about any winter.
if things get close, one could still feed a patty of fondant in early spring. I usually - if need be(e) - give sugar syrup then. Best from frame-feeder close to the cluster or from underneath.

[robirot]

Best is to proper prepare the hives for Winter by filling up supplies with enough sugar syrup right before winter.
For emergency feeeing i prefere straight sugar fondant.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

BlackForest {Esp. two deeps. There can be enough feed in the combs to sustain any colony during just about any winter.}

Sir, the deeps can be full of honey, but do to severe cold, the bees can only move upward following the heat from the cluster.  Honey only one frame away becomes useless because the bees cannot reach it. 

I have seen winter dead outs, bees head first in cells dead, with honey on the far end, only inches away of the same frame the bees starved on.  With sever cold, the bees cannot move over to adjacent frames full of honey.  My bees clustered, always move upward, not sideways.

Therefore full capped frames of honey off to the sides are not available to the bees and the air is to cold for me to open a hive and move frames of Honey.
Blessings

[Hops Brewster]

I dunno, but I figure fondant is just table sugar cooked until it's soft candy.  so I simply make sugar bricks and avoid the cooking part.
More work than I'm inclined to do.  They use the sugar bricks just fine, because the moisture from their respiration makes a syrup of the bottom surface.
Last winter 2 out of 3 hives used the sugar bricks instead of honey stores on the outside frames.  3rd hive managed to move laterally to honey reserves instead of moving up.

[blackforest beekeeper]

BlackForest {Esp. two deeps. There can be enough feed in the combs to sustain any colony during just about any winter.}

Sir, the deeps can be full of honey, but do to severe cold, the bees can only move upward following the heat from the cluster.  Honey only one frame away becomes useless because the bees cannot reach it. 

I have seen winter dead outs, bees head first in cells dead, with honey on the far end, only inches away of the same frame the bees starved on.  With sever cold, the bees cannot move over to adjacent frames full of honey.  My bees clustered, always move upward, not sideways.

Therefore full capped frames of honey off to the sides are not available to the bees and the air is to cold for me to open a hive and move frames of Honey.
Blessings

Hi Van,

1st the frames ALL FULL of honey is very bad for bees. They need empty cells for the cluster to form on.
2nd the fondant or sugar on top is quite a ways futher away than the honey or whatever on the same comb. so they are no better off there.
3rd bees dont only move upwards. I dont even have an upwards. maybe not as cold not as long here, may be.
problem may often be: bees like to cluster on the former brood-nest, NOT on unbred-yet fresh comb. So they get some food when they can, but DO NOT MOVE after it as it is being consumed.
4th weak colonies are more suspect to starvation by disconnection from food.
5th also, when they breed and there is a spell of cold, they dont move then, either.
6th bees headfirst in the cells is normal in winter. they do that in the cluster. so there may also be a varroa and/or virus-problem undetected a co-reason.

how cold are your winters? how long the cold-spells?

When its cold (for us here, like -5 to -15 C) bees dont need much food. they need food when the breed. so, winter-feed is really negligable (november to february, sometimes longer, that is for us). its spring-build-up that consumes feed. and then is when most bees starve (around here) not in thte cold of winter.

[blackforest beekeeper]

one other thing that would make me be careful: every feed is a simulation of a flow. so they might be coaxed into starting breeding again at an untimely time.

[MikeyN.C.]

I believe that capped honey, up top is a heat sink ?

[robirot]

I dunno, but I figure fondant is just table sugar cooked until it's soft candy.  so I simply make sugar bricks and avoid the cooking part.
More work than I'm inclined to do.  They use the sugar bricks just fine, because the moisture from their respiration makes a syrup of the bottom surface.
Last winter 2 out of 3 hives used the sugar bricks instead of honey stores on the outside frames.  3rd hive managed to move laterally to honey reserves instead of moving up.

Fondant actually is icing sugar mixed with inverted syrup, not cooked sugar, that yield rock hard candy blocks.

[Dallasbeek]

I dunno, but I figure fondant is just table sugar cooked until it's soft candy.  so I simply make sugar bricks and avoid the cooking part.
More work than I'm inclined to do.  They use the sugar bricks just fine, because the moisture from their respiration makes a syrup of the bottom surface.
Last winter 2 out of 3 hives used the sugar bricks instead of honey stores on the outside frames.  3rd hive managed to move laterally to honey reserves instead of moving up.

I don't think fondant is heated at all.

Fondant actually is icing sugar mixed with inverted syrup, not cooked sugar, that yield rock hard candy blocks.

[TheHoneyPump]

+1.  I agree with everything blackforest beekeeper and others posted above wrt ensuring hive has stores in the combs of honey or fed syrup well BEFORE winter prep.  Further will add bees do not starve with frames of food next to them.  Something else killed them. And a further further add, use or need of fondant and other such is imho evidence of inexperience or filling gaps of poor, perhaps bordering incompetent, beekeeping practices.  May be a little strong, may be not.

[blackforest beekeeper]

I dunno, but I figure fondant is just table sugar cooked until it's soft candy.  so I simply make sugar bricks and avoid the cooking part.
More work than I'm inclined to do.  They use the sugar bricks just fine, because the moisture from their respiration makes a syrup of the bottom surface.
Last winter 2 out of 3 hives used the sugar bricks instead of honey stores on the outside frames.  3rd hive managed to move laterally to honey reserves instead of moving up.

Fondant actually is icing sugar mixed with inverted syrup, not cooked sugar, that yield rock hard candy blocks.

I tought there were "inverted" versions to be had?
I don`t use fondant as in the BIOLAND-version it`s outrageously expensive.

[blackforest beekeeper]

sorry. to early in the morning. o - well - glasses lying on the tabel there. I didn?t read "inverted" in your last post, robirot.

A guy I know cares for 8000 hives or maybe half of them used this sort of fondant for emergency-feeding this spring. they keep the bees very tight and with just enough feed and it got very cold with the bees already breeding. he said, it would be better to use the inverted stuff then. he had a hard time finding machines that could knead the dough in these dimensions...

I guess, combs of honey/feed would have been better. But: Where to store them?

[robirot]

Fondant actually is icing sugar mixed with inverted syrup, not cooked sugar, that yield rock hard candy blocks.

I tought there were "inverted" versions to be had?
I don`t use fondant as in the BIOLAND-version it`s outrageously expensive.

For fondant, only the syrup gets inverted (Ambrosia onl uses glucosis syrup, thats why it driesbrock hard, no fructosis) it wouldn't work with the inverted solid sugars, since they behave a lot different.

Yes, Bioland and all the other eco-labels are a rip off, with Bioland propably being the most reasonable one.

sorry. to early in the morning. o - well - glasses lying on the tabel there. I didn?t read "inverted" in your last post, robirot.

A guy I know cares for 8000 hives or maybe half of them used this sort of fondant for emergency-feeding this spring. they keep the bees very tight and with just enough feed and it got very cold with the bees already breeding. he said, it would be better to use the inverted stuff then. he had a hard time finding machines that could knead the dough in these dimensions...

I guess, combs of honey/feed would have been better. But: Where to store them?

8000 hives in germany? Who is having that many hives?

That inverted ia better for bees is an old myth, that is still quite popular in germany, or to take work of the bees by uaing inverted syrup. Fact is, invertin is always produced by the bees even if not needed. Inverting sugar is a normal process for the bees and can not be stopped vor helped. They need to do so.

I myself had actually to feed sometimes in spring, feeding syrup was not as nice as feeding fondant. They didn't really store emergency feed syrup, which resulted in feeding every week. With fondant you get a quite long feeding time. It gets rather treated like stores they allready have, then feed. Just like fondant you put in a feeding pouch during flow, where it stays untouched.

[blackforest beekeeper]

@robirot: sounds reasonable what You say. never thought about it as I use sugar, which is "cheaper". I have thought about putting fondant in my nucs, so I don`t have to see them till september...    too expensive as yet.

Ansgar Westerhoff has appr. 8000 hives. http://westerhoff-imkereibetriebe.de/
he overwintered appr. 2000 nucs nearby in the rhine-valley (the densest bee-population in Germany there; even the BIOLAND-colleagues down there are b...tching bout him) and will bring a lot more this winter - or are here already, don`t know.
There is politics going on in BIOLAND which I can clearly see are against big bee industries. Too many hobbyists, still. But these politics might affect me, though small, cause I try to get my logistics straight and easy. "no loss of flight-bees while transporting..." want me to close my hives before loading???

[blackforest beekeeper]

fondant this spring: was brick-hard-frost here, not up north? they couldn`t fly to get water, so..... aaaah. you got them styrofoam boxes. lots of condensation there, I dig it.
we poured some syrup twice. I think it gave them a push towards build-up quite nicely. spring flow was SHORT, but they managed nicely.

[robirot]

@robirot: sounds reasonable what You say. never thought about it as I use sugar, which is "cheaper". I have thought about putting fondant in my nucs, so I don`t have to see them till september...    too expensive as yet.

Ansgar Westerhoff has appr. 8000 hives. http://westerhoff-imkereibetriebe.de/
he overwintered appr. 2000 nucs nearby in the rhine-valley (the densest bee-population in Germany there; even the BIOLAND-colleagues down there are b...tching bout him) and will bring a lot more this winter - or are here already, don`t know.
There is politics going on in BIOLAND which I can clearly see are against big bee industries. Too many hobbyists, still. But these politics might affect me, though small, cause I try to get my logistics straight and easy. "no loss of flight-bees while transporting..." want me to close my hives before loading???

Yes, i know the discussions, absurd. Well i din't know about lose of foragers, since i only move my hives during night with open entrace (well you propably know not very common in germany, and a lot of people told me that would be crazy. Well one time this year i only had my Fiesta and stuffed 5 hives into it, no problem, all open entrance).
Only for mating nucs i din't care, if i live them from my mating apiary, to my storage and working apiary, i just move them and good.

.

fondant this spring: was brick-hard-frost here, not up north? they couldn`t fly to get water, so..... aaaah. you got them styrofoam boxes. lots of condensation there, I dig it.
we poured some syrup twice. I think it gave them a push towards build-up quite nicely. spring flow was SHORT, but they managed nicely.

For spring the best fondant is the fondabee fondant in 2.5 kg packs. Only cut out a square of 2" ? 2". The bag prohibits drying, and the bees inside Form enough moisture to easly consum the sugar. Fondabee ia also available as bio at a price just above bio sugar.

Yes i use mainly styroform, actually condensation is not an issue there. I habe a couple wooden boxes too, they have the same problems with condensation and in spring a big problem, since it it really wet up in  northern Germany, they soak up a lot of water over winter, which the bees first need to drive of. Actually you can really see where the winter cluster is hanging round, die to the wet areas in the outside. This soaked up water in the wood, is what I suspect is the biggest reason for the throwback of ooden hives compred to styroform up here (and of course the weight). Well now i just have to exchange all my Segeberger for a better system. 5 years to go for that.

[blackforest beekeeper]

Well i din't know about lose of foragers, since i only move my hives during night with open entrace (well you propably know not very common in germany, and a lot of people told me that would be crazy. Well one time this year i only had my Fiesta and stuffed 5 hives into it, no problem, all open entrance).
Only for mating nucs i din't care, if i live them from my mating apiary, to my storage and working apiary, i just move them and good.

Well, I do it the same way. And I have put open colonies in my van, too. First I put on a veil, but later on discarded. I wished for a policeman to stop me with all the beards on the boxes. 
Open boxes is SO MUCH MORE TRANQUIL. Bees just don`t really notice while they notice a closed entrance very well.