Feed The Bees

It feels like winter has been fairly mild, so far.  This isn't actually good news for my bees - they're supposed to be clustered in a tight ball inside the hive, and not moving round very much.  Instead, they are taking advantage of the warm weather, and spending time outside the hive flying and foraging.  The problem with this is it uses energy, which they would normally replace by feeding on nectar.  But of course it's winter, so apart from the odd daphne bush or winter jasmine, there isn't much nectar to be found.  So the bees are getting home tired and hungry, and eating through their stored honey (which is supposed to last them until the end of April).

Hive #1 is particularly affected as they have a much larger number of bees - which means more hungry mouths to feed, and faster depletion of their stores.  So, on Saturday I decided to top up their food to get them through until spring.

I've posted before about feeding bees - but that was using liquid feed (syrup).  In winter, the bees are unable to evaporate off the water from sugar syrup, because it's too cold and damp.  So feeding them syrup won't help them.  Instead, I need to feed them fondant, which they will ingest directly in the same way as honey (i.e. they don't need to process it first).  I had a 2.5 kg bag of fondant ready:

First, I needed to cut the bag open and fold the flaps back (as you can sort-of see in the photo above).  Then, it should be a simple matter of putting the bag, hole-downwards, over one of the holes in the crown-board.  Except...

... it was a fairly warm day, and there were lots of inquisitive bees who wanted to see what was going on!  Time to improvise - I borrowed two of the sliding entrance blocks to cover the crownboard holes, and make things a bit easier:

That's one...

... and the other!

It was then a fairly simple matter of putting the bag onto the crownboard, sliding it over the hole (while simultaneously sliding the entrance block out of the way) and trying to line up the bag hole with the crownboard hole (which requires a bit of guesswork):

And we're done!  Hopefully the bees will enjoy their sugary treat, and it will keep them going until spring.