Feeding: how much syrup/fondant do you use and when?

[Neils]

Just out of interest and I know this is a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

How much feed in syrup and Fondant do you reckon you use on an average hive per year?

Personally, my ideal is no syrup, but I'm not averse to a couple of litres of 1:1 on a new swarm or box of bees of foundation. That said, this year I reckon for non-winter top up I used about 30 litres of syrup over the season feeding small colonies that were struggling to bring stores in and in danger or starving and another 20 litres or so of 2:1 syrup topping up colonies for winter across 5 colonies.

I've got 8 packs of 2.5kg Invert Fondant, 6 of which will be going onto hives tomorrow to make sure there's enough food for winter with 2 spares just in case or for queen rearing in the spring.

[Jon]

Nucs nearly always need fed a bit as the ratio of foragers to nurse bees is low.
A decent nuc should be trying to expand up to normal colony size as soon as possible.
I tend to feed my colonies a little extra in the autumn and then I remove excess frames of stores in the spring time and save them for feeding nucs in June and July.
I looked around a few of mine over the last day or two and they have eaten a lot of the fondant I gave them.
I fed some syrup from September to mid October.
I took 400 lbs of honey from mine in a poor summer so it is only fair to give them something back.
September was a terrible foraging month and they brought in next to nothing.
I would say on average I give a top up of maybe 6-8 litres of syrup in autumn.

[GRIZZLY]

I fed each of my colonies 1 i/2 x 12.5 kg of ambrosia in the "autmn" plus having to feed constantly to supplement the lack of forage during the so-called summer.I took 40 lb of honey in the spring then nothing further. I recon I prtobably fed about 6 kg of ambrosia per colony over the season. I have a store of fondant and pollen patties to feed during the spring if needed.

[Black Comb]

For full colonies this year I took out surplus frames early April and put them back in in May. When these were used I put smallish amounts of fondant on top just to keep them going until the flow started (objective was not to contaminate the subsequent honey).
Autumn all colonies got 12.5kgs of Ambrosia, larger ones 18 kgs. Bear in mind I took all the supers off.
Anything that is getting a bit light in Jan or Feb gets fondant. This may or may not be necessary, but as you can't open up you can't be sure. I would rather have a colony with too many stores in spring than a dead one.

I'm still really experimenting with Ambrosia. I suspect long term 12.5 kgs in Autumn may be adequate but time will tell.

[fatshark]

Full hives received ~18kg of fondant this year (1.5 blocks, split open over a QE). During the season they'd had a combination of their own honey and a few kg's of fondant during a particularly lean patch. It was a bad year (in case you hadn't noticed!) and I'd normally only expect to use syrup when doing a Bailey comb change or as a stimulation to get the queen going early in the season.

I only got about 8 full supers (3 honey production hives, the rest are for queen rearing) and only took these at the end of the year. OSR was totally rained off ...

[gavin]

Considering my main colonies, I didn't feed them at all through the season. The ones which didn't go to the heather received 15l of 2:1 syrup in Aug/Sep, the ones which did go to the hills had 5l of 2:! when they came back in September. A few of them many need half a 12.5kg block of fondant before the winter is out.

Some nucs were given frames of honey from my strongest ones, none were given feed.

So, on average, for full colonies - 10l of 2:1 syrup plus 6kg bakers fondant, all at the end of the season.

The association's bees have had liquid feed and may need fondant overwinter. Most are nuc-sized. Average feed so far, maybe 10l. They may also get 3kg bakers fondant on average.

In recent seasons I've probably given similar amounts of sugar. If I didn't put the effort in to give them a good volume of syrup feed in September, then I'd have put on a similar amount in fondant, usually in January.

[Bridget]

Gosh I think I've been a bit mean with mine. I've not kept records of the amount I've fed them but one hive had nothing all summer and the other which was a bit small after a swarm did get fed, but a bit haphazardly. The demarree hive I gave nothing to did give me some honey though. However I did feed them all when the heather was over. I'll have to keep better records and be more generous. I gave some fondant last Christmas but I'm not sure what the weight was. Only into my second year and still so much to learn.


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[Poly Hive]

If you consider the fondant as an insurance it "feels" cheaper. Also in Spring anything left over can be turned into syrup. No waste then. :)

PH