I am not a beekeeper, but I do help my backyard honey bees overwinter by providing bee fondant on all days mild enough for the honey bees to fly.
There are different methods for feeding honey bees in winter, so I invite readers to research the topic and make your own choices. In this brief discussion, I will describe what I do to provide extra nourishment for my overwintering honey bees.
Honey bees are not capable of hibernating or going dormant: they remain active through winter. Honey bees rely on stored honey for food and if their stored supply runs out, the bees will starve. Without nectar from flowers, bees are unable to make new honey in winter. We can help our bee friends by providing bee fondant.
Bee fondant is inverted sugar paste or a kind of "bee candy" used to feed overwintering bees. You can make your own (there are plenty of recipes online), which is similar to making candy, or you can purchase high quality bee fondant from reputable sources.
Instructions for Providing Bee Fondant
1. Acquire bee fondant.
Make or purchase your bee fondant. I use Priddy Acres bee fondant and have found it to be quite successful, but again, I would encourage readers to research the options and make your own choice. These instructions outline my method for using Priddy Acres bee fondant and can be modified using your preferred fondant type.
Priddy Acres bee fondant can be ordered online. It arrives in a box with a block of individual sheets measuring about 5 inches each. The sheets are divided with layers of wax paper and are easily separated. I recommend keeping the unused portion of the fondant frozen until you are ready to use it.
2. Break off a single sheet of fondant to use and return the remaining fondant to the freezer.
3. Use a flat feeding dish. I use the plastic lids of 42-ounce oatmeal containers. You will be creating a thin layer of fondant for the bees.
4. Break off a small bit of fondant for a daily portion, around 1 square inch, and place the rest of the sheet in the refrigerator.
5. Cut or break the fondant into tiny pieces to mash down.
6. With your thumbs, press the fondant to get it as flat as possible. This is to avoid any "puddling" should the fondant melt. Melted fondant can be very dangerous to bees because if it comes in contact with their bodies, it can harm their wings and weigh down their bodies.
Note: When there's no danger of the fondant melting, you can use a thicker layer:
7. Place the fondant in a tray off the ground. I use plant stands with a terracotta saucer or a pie plate and put the dishes inside, often combined with butterfly sponges and/or fruit.
When to Use Fondant
In my yard, bees will fly on milder winter days based on temperature, amount of sunlight, and wind speed. Use fondant only when conditions are adequate for the bees to safely return to their nest ("hive").
Caution:
Do not use fondant in mist, drizzle, or rain, even if you see bees flying. They will not be able to return to the nest when wet.
When using fondant, always be aware of temperatures and conditions. Too hot can cause fondant to melt and harm the bees, and too cold may prohibit bees from safely returning to the nest. Remove the fondant well before sunset and ensure that all bees have left. You may have to shake bees off the fondant as it starts getting late in order to ensure that they can still fly. (On very mild nights, you may choose to leave fondant out because moths use it, as well.)
Along with fondant, consider supplying butterfly sponges: cellulose sponges soaked in half clear Gatorade / half water, used for all insects who nectar. If the weather is not quite perfect for bees but not too bad (not too cold or wet), you can use butterfly sponges instead of fondant. Mist or light drizzle won't affect the sponges, and bees don't linger as long on butterfly sponges as they do on fondant, which they consume for a long time.
Honey bees on butterfly sponge:
Brachygastra mellifica (honey wasp) eating fondant crumb:
Rescuing Bees
Keep in mind that foraging bees are the older worker bees from the nest and you may have a few casualties, but if you are seeing a lot of deaths, you might need to alter conditions in your habitat and provisions.
If you are providing fondant, you should, in my opinion, be ready to rescue and overnight bees on occasion. In my case, bees sometimes get caught in the bird water and I have to fish them out. I reach my hand under the bee and gently scoop her out. Usually I can put wet bees in sunshine and they will recover quickly. If it's too cool or if they are too wet, I put them in small containers with a soft paper towel bottom and bring them inside. I cover the container and put it on a seedling mat (used for starting plants indoors), which provides light, gentle heat. In two to eight minutes (depending on how wet and cold the bee was), the bees are ready to fly again. Keep a close eye on an inside bee recovering on a seedling mat. As soon as the bee starts moving around in the container, bring the covered container outside into the sun and release the bee. Bees warmed inside will usually immediately fly out of the container.
bee warming on seedling mat:
These two bees were floating in rain water on a sunny but relatively cool day. I fished them out and let them gently warm up inside on a seedling mat, and they were ready to be released after about four minutes. When my bees are ready, I bring them to the sunny area with the other bees who are feeding on fondant and let them walk or fly out on their own.
Note: If you are returning your bees to a different (perhaps sunnier) place, hold the bee on your finger or in the container below the surface that you want her to crawl onto. Like many insects, they will crawl up onto a surface, but not down. I have t-posts in the garden with socks over the top (this provides hiding places and protection for several types of insects), and I use the one closest to the fondant for many bee releases. I simply hold my finger just under where the bee should crawl so that she can crawl up onto the dry sock and warm up in the sun.
You might need to overnight bees who fail to return to the nest. To overnight bees, place your straggler bees in a padded critter keeper or similar container with a butterfly sponge (cellulose sponge soaked in half clear Gatorade, half water – see article on
General Rearing Tips.) Do not use bee fondant indoors because the bees eat too much and will be unable to fly. Place the container with paper towel or cloth padding on a seedling mat for gentle warmth. Release the bees as soon as conditions warrant, generally when you are seeing other honey bees flying around. The safest thing to do, however, is to make sure the outdoor bees return to the nest by removing the fondant in time and by shooing them away, if necessary, to get them flying. Blowing gently on bees will almost always induce them to fly. The colder it gets, the more lethargic they become, so you want to get them flying before it gets too cold.
overnighting bee on butterfly sponge inside container on seedling mat:
The more you work with your bees, the more often they will land on you, which means they might ride on you and end up inside. If I fail to notice a bee riding on me, I will generally hear buzzing inside. I keep clear plastic containers around for catching them. Most often they fly to a window, which makes it easy to catch them and carry them outside.
Some Notes about Bee Fondant
Bee fondant will attract bees, butterflies, moths, some true bugs, some beetles, some flies, some wasps, and more. (I've even had snails munching on the fondant!) The only animal I ever had trouble with are very aggressive Polistes wasps who might harm the bees. I generally remove them individually from the fondant.
Honey wasps and
Largus bugs on fondant:
If you are putting out bee fondant for the first time, you might find that it takes a while, even a few weeks, for the honey bees to find it. Please be patient. It is similar to putting out hummingbird feeders for the first time where it could take a bit of time for the hummers to find it. Once your honey bees find the fondant, they will tell all of their colleagues about it and you will have plenty of traffic.
It's likely that winter bees coming to backyard fondant are from different nests. I rarely have a problem, and only occasionally see a minor bee tiff, which I break up by disturbing them. More often I see bees helping other bees. When bees get caught in the bird bath, I often see one bee helping another free herself. In addition, the bees will groom each other and help each other out if someone is too wet or too cold or too full.
Each winter I start putting out fondant as soon as temperatures drop and there are fewer flowers available. I continue using fondant well into spring and only stop when I've got plenty of blossoms in my yard for the bees to nectar on. At that time, I gradually reduce the amount of fondant until my bees are back on their natural garden plants.
The most wonderful thing about putting out bee fondant is watching it explode with life with numerous bees and a variety of other insects. The sound of bees in flight is absolutely mesmerising and watching them and listening to them brings me immense joy.
VIDEO of honey bees on fondant
VIDEO of honey bees on fondant
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