Winter Candy Board for a Warré Hive

The one thing I like about a vertical hive system is the options it gives you, but "options" means additional equipment which can present a storage space problem. If you're someone who appreciates buying something when it's on sale, with a coupon, using a card that gives cash back then you'll like this piece of equipment.

In the summer, I use a 3/4" wood rim as an Imirie shim. In the Fall, I attach 1/2-inch hardware cloth to it and use it as a comb-crushing screen for strained honey. Today this piece of equipment is being converted into a Winter Candy Board. The candy will be placed above the super (under the quilt), to provide emergency food should the bees eat all their honey. My preference is to have the hive winterized (i.e.: stocked with emergency food and wrapped) by Halloween, but a candy board like this can be slipped into the hive very quickly any time during the Winter.

No-cook Candy Board

No-Cook Candy Recipe: combine 3# sugar, 1/4 cup mineral salt (optional), 6 T. cold water, and 1/2 t. vinegar (optional). You may also add a few drops of anise essential oil to stimulate the bees' appetite.

If the cluster has moved to the top of the hive, the sugar provides both insulation and moisture wicking directly above the cluster. These properties play as big a role in the bees' Winter survival as food stores. The 3/8" hole on the side of the rim provides a very small amount of ventilation and is (technically) big enough for the bees to use as an exit/entrance if necessary. It'll take only one dead bee to clog that size hole so if you're looking to provide your bees with an upper entrance, you might want to drill a couple-a-few (as they say in CO) holes for them.

Two Recipes for Thin Syrup (without and with refined sugar)

There are tons of recipes for beekeeping on the web and I don't mean to reinvent the wheel; I'm just trying to use up stuff I have around the house. Both recipes below make 1:1 syrup but have different proposed uses.

RECIPE 1: syrup without refined sugar

"NECTAR" to ENCOURAGE COMB BUILDING

Stir together in a quart-size Mason jar:
1 part honey (10 oz.)
2 parts water (20 oz.)
If your honey is crystallized, use hot water to fully dissolve it. If your honey is really dry, feel free to use up to 3 parts water. The 1:3 ratio very closely simulates natural nectar but if the bees don't take it down quickly, it is more apt to mold. Adding a few drops of anise essential oil may convince your bees to eat. 

RECIPE 2: made with refined sugar

IPM BROOD-REARING STIMULANT

Heat together to make a light syrup:
2 c. water
2 c. granulated white sugar

Stir together then add to the no-longer hot but still warm syrup:
1/16 t. liquid lecithin (don't bother trying granular lecithin, it won't work)
16-30 drops spearmint oil
12-20 drops lemongrass oil
Use the lesser amount of oil to initiate Spring buildup or to stimulate brood reading, especially of newly installed swarms/packages/nucs. Use the greater amount to improve colony health against disease and mite infestation.

Makes 1 quart of 1:1 syrup.

ON FRUCTOSE: This recipe scales up. When making a large batch, replacing some white sugar with fructose can help prevent crystallization.

ON ESSENTIAL OILS: They will emulsify in warm syrup better than cold. Too hot will volatilize the EOs. Brood with these particular essential oils in their bodies are supposedly less palatable to the Varroa mite, so including them is said to inoculate the next generation of bees against them. Aside from purported mite control, a benefit to using any essential oil is that they are natural preservatives. Note that the lowered pH inhibits – not prevents – fermentation of the syrup. Thin syrup just doesn't have high enough a sugar concentration to prevent fermentation.

WHY 1:1:
1:1 or light syrup is easy to slurp up for immediate use by the bees. Heavy syrup, 2 parts sugar to 1 par water (or 2:1) is intended for them to store. By giving them a drier syrup in the fall, we save them the work to fanning off the water in preparation for winter.

HOW TO USE:
When: Spring through Summer, anytime a colony is light and there is not a honey flow. Thin nectar molds readily in warm weather. Make small batches, or make a big one and store extra jars in the fridge.

How Long: When feeding bees, the usual recommendation is to feed until a) they stop taking it or b) you see them capping stores. These actions indicate that natural resources are available.

NOTES:
• If you need to feed carbohydrate (syrup) it is probably a good idea to feed protein (pollen).
• For comb building to occur, in addition to a nectar flow you'll need a population of young bees to eat it, and they'll need warmth to work the wax they produce. In other words, don't expect to see building in early spring or late fall no matter how much you feed.
• Thin syrup may be interpreted as a nectar flow and may stimulate brood rearing. Don't take it away from your bees too early or they could have lots of brood to feed and, without a natural flow, those bees will go hungry. Don't leave the feeder in the hive too long, though. You don't want them storing syrup. If you're not opposed to it, food coloring in the syrup can help you see if the bees are storing it.

Feeder Equipment: a hivetop feeder enables a Warré colony to take the syrup quickly. For a TBH, use a Boardman feeder inside the hive.

MORE INTERESTING READING: Feeding Bees Sugar Syrup, Feeding Bees Nectar Subsitutes

Recipe: Fondant for Winter Feeding

This is a good workable amount for a 3-quart pot:
  4 lbs. granulated sugar (white)
  1 lb. water
  1 tsp. lemon juice or Apple Cider Vinegar (optional but the acid assists in keeping the sugar inverted)

Hopefully your hives aren't "light" and don't need to be fed, but if you had to feed heavy syrup in the Fall, then Winter feeding might be necessary as well. Syrup has moisture than can be a death sentence for the bees in Winter, so candy or fondant is a much wiser choice. A no-cook candy board is far easier to make but if you're inclined you might want to make fondant, which some say is easier for the bees to digest.

Certainly, you can buy fondant at Cake Crafts but it's got additives in it that can give bees dysentery. It's better to make your own. Making fondant involves inverting sugar, breaking the disaccharide sucrose into the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and then controlling the molecular alignment of those simple sugars. Inverted sugar is supposedly more easily digested by the bees, and in the Winter you want to keep things easy for them. There are lots of recipes on the Internet for winter bee feed. Really old ones call for cream of tartar but I'd avoid that additive. Other than than, forget about the ingredients and the measurements; it's the method that matters most when making fondant. And don't  worry about fancy equipment either; all you need is a little patience and a watchful eye.

fondant

Buttercream Icing (or Recipe for Grease Patties)

While we've only seen two mites, the reason we're concerned about them is that while the lone queen bee slows down egg-laying in the Fall, the many mite foundresses keep on reproducing. So as the bee population dwindles and the mite count increases, the mite-per-bee ratio could become too high for the colony to withstand. Especially a small one like ours.

Bees don't fly if it's much under 50°F, so in preparation for a cold weekend forecast, we replenished their syrup and gave them a Grease Patty. (Actually, I formed it into a quenelle the traditional way, using two spoons to achieve a very nice three-sided football shape.) Theoretically, the bees will walk all over it, and pick up grease as they try to get the sugar. The grease makes them slippery and the mites fall off, or the bees pick the mites off as they groom each other. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there for the mite.

Many beekeepers use a Screened Bottom Board, but our hive has a solid bottom. If we had a SBB, the mites would fall through the screen and that would be that. The mites would soon die without its host. With a solid bottom, if a bee walks by a loose mite, it can pick up a hitch hiker. We need to actually kill the mites, so we modified the grease patty recipe.

Mostly sugar with shortening, the basic recipe for grease patties is almost identical to Wilton's Buttercream Icing. Ours, though, has tea tree oil instead of vanilla, making it a miticide. Here is our recipe, in volume so it's easy for those of you that don't own a kitchen scale, and scaled down to a wallet-friendly size.

Combine and shape into a "slider":
3 tablespoons sugar (OR 2 T sugar + 1 T granulated fructose*)
1 tablespoon shortening
a drizzle of honey (a teaspoon-sized chunk of comb honey)
a pinch of mineral salt, crushed to a fine powder**
3 drops wintergeen or tea tree oil***

* Fructose's hydroscopic properties can help keep the patty from drying out.

** such as Real brand
*** Every Chinese person has White Flower Oil in their house, and I bet it works better.

In the future, we might make a larger batch so that we can include some anise oil, too. Our bees barely touched the Grease Patty and the anise, a bee favorite, would stimulate their appetite. The mixture freezes well, which is handy for beekeepers who keep grease patties in their hives year-round. Even without any essential oil, they are reportedly effective in combatting Tracheal Mites. But we're hoping to not keep anything in the hive, especially during the busy season, except bees.

Recipe: Thick Syrup for Fall Feeding (no refined sugar)

Stir together in a quart-sized mason jar:
3 parts honey (24 oz.)
1/2-1 part water (4-8 oz.)
15 drops spearmint essential oil
5-10 drops lemongrass essential oil

When Fall feeding, colonies should be fed in a way that encourages the bees to take a lot of thick syrup in a short period of time, which "fattens" the bees in preparation for Winter.

You might wonder, as I did, what "a way that encourages the bees" is. It's not like you can stand there shaking a stick, commanding the bees, "Take this thick syrup. Quick!"* Well, there's no teacher like experience, and so a few dead bees later we can tell you what not to do.

Two Smoker Recipes

Smokeless Smoke

Pour 1 1/2 oz. apple cider vinegar into a 1L. spray bottle.
Add water to make 1 litre.

Do not add sugar to the water unless you are prepared to have sticky gloves, a sticky hive tool, a sticky hive, a sticky veil, ...

Supposedly Varroa-killing Smoker Fuel

Any combination of sumac bobs, juniper and/or chaparral leaves.

HOW TO USE: Create a small gap at the back of the hive. Gently puff cool smoke through the lower entrance until it starts coming out the top. Close up the hive for one minute, then let the bees out.

WHEN TO USE: August 15? IPM smoking is more effective in the Fall when there is little brood. Smoke will not penetrate cell cappings so only affects phoretic mites.

NOTE: A heavy smoking can mar comb honey with specks of soot, so harvest those prize-winning combs first.