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Winter Feeding

The bees need to be able to maintain their warmth throughout the winter to survive.  That means that they need to have a ready supply of carbohydrates available to them – without my having to open their brood boxes, and allowing their heat to escape from the hive.   These “candies” are placed directly above the frames or above an inner-cover that has a hole to allow bee access to the area above the inner cover.  A 2″-3″ tall box is added, with the outer cover going on top of that.

Here’s a recipe – provided to the BeeMaster’s Facebook group by Emil Kaluza – a beekeeper in South Texas.

Add 2 qts water to a 5 gallon stainless pot and 1 qt chamomile tea, steeped and cooled.Bring to boil.

When boiling add parts of 25lb bag of plain sugar, mixing as you do. Monitor heat, keeping as close to 230 degrees as possible, adding sugar as able. When all the sugar is added, stir constantly and boil at 230 degrees.

After a 10 minute boil at that temp, ad 1 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar. Remove from heat and let cool (this will take hours) to below 200 degrees.

Whisk or stir rapidly until it begins to whiten. Can be down to 150 degrees.

Pour into forms and let sit all night. They will harden, dry out, and whiten to a rock candy consistency and the bees will moisten and munch. Very easy and clean method of Winter feeding.

There are hundreds of fondant and bee candy recipes out there, but I’ve reduced mine to the basics, though you can add a pinch of salt with water(I do), or add a quarter cup of lemon juice (I don’t), or replace cream of tarter with 1 tsp of vinegar per pound of sugar ( I don’t, never had a problem with cream of tartar).   You can add 5 lb of Soy Flour for protein if you don’t have much pollen in your hive.  You can feed now as I do, but ants will be a problem until Winter, when its feed, close, forget, not having to open and lose heat from your hives until Feb.

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