Winter Fondant

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Although I fed heavy syrup in preparation for winter, I have been worried that the bees were not able to store enough. At some point during the winter, I’m sure they are going to need extra food. With this in mind, a couple of months ago I built a screened fondant feeder box. The idea is a box with hardware cloth along the bottom that when fondant is poured into the box, will harden in place with the hardware cloth embedded into the fondant. This should hold the fondant in place while the bees are able to move both beneath and above the fondant. Today I decided that it was time to use it to add fondant to the top of the hive.

Pouring the warm fondant into the box worked well enough and the screen mesh seems to be supporting the weight of the fondant. After this first use, I realized that I made the feeder box much too deep. It probably only needs to be about half and inch to one inch deep. This box is a little over three inches deep. There was much more space above the fondant than I was comfortable with so I felt I needed to try to fill the extra space with something. Before installing the box onto the the hive, I placed 3/4th inch thick extruded polystyrene insulation board in the space above the fondant. I used 2x2 pieces of wood to keep the foam board from resting directly on top of the fondant. There is still enough room for the bees to use the top entrance located under the telescoping cover.