How to : Feeding fondant
Regular readers, and those who have taken the time to rummage through the archives, will know I'm a big fan of using fondant for all my autumn and winter feeding. It's something I've been doing for over 15 years, and — except for feeding of colonies when queen rearing or mating {{1}} — it's the only way I feed sugar to my bees at any time of the year.
However, in looking back though the cobwebby archives I realise that the information is rather diffusely spread.
I've regularly discussed 'opening a block of fondant over the hive and leaving them to get on with things', but have less frequently mentioned nucleus colonies or mini-nucs. Even more rarely have I acknowledged the small number of (minor) problems that may occur when feeding fondant, and how to avoid them.
Early September {{2}} seemed like a good time to prepare a comprehensive post on feeding fondant, covering the why, how and when of the topic, and addressing some 'edge cases' (as someone debugging a computer program would call them) which are unusual, and typically involve things going awry.
Don't worry, none of these are sufficiently problematic to alter my opinion that feeding fondant is almost always the best way to feed colonies.
In this post I'll briefly discuss the benefits of feeding fondant instead of syrup (or honey 😱), and sourcing the fondant. I've outlined the benefits of fondant relatively recently in 'Preparing for winter', but have updated and expanded them here with additional information.
David (The Apiarist)
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The rest of the post will focus on the practicalities of using fondant. Where to buy it, how to prepare it, adding it to the hive or nucs, and when and how to remove any 'leftovers' (as well as what to do with them). I then close by describing some (always minor) problems I've encountered using fondant, and ways that they can be avoided or resolved.