Confused -Ambrosia feed paste / Apifonda

[gingerbees]

Newbie confused about winter feeding. I have some Ambrosia feed paste but do I feed this running up to winter or do I feed it during the winter months? It didn't come with instructions!!

Also - What is Apifonda? Is this the same or something completely different?

I have a national hive with about 7 frames of bees but not masses of stores. So I will need some extra winter help.

Your advice is much appreciated

 

[tonybloke]

Newbie confused about winter feeding. I have some Ambrosia feed paste but do I feed this running up to winter or do I feed it during the winter months? It didn't come with instructions!!

Also - What is Apifonda? Is this the same or something completely different?

I have a national hive with about 7 frames of bees but not masses of stores. So I will need some extra winter help.

Your advice is much appreciated

for winter feed just use 2 - 1 sugar syrup.

 

[gingerbees]

Thanks for the reply. the confusion is that we want to feed a fondant during the winter direct onto the frame tops. We ordered Ambrosia feed paste from Tho......s thinking we were getting this.
However, when it arrived and we looked in the catalogue it said to feed Apifonda in Winter and feed paste in Autumn, but there is no Apifonda in their catalogue !
So we don't know if we have got the right product or if there is another, we don't want to feed syrup during the winter.
Help

 

[Gardenbees]

Apifonda and Ambrosia are trade names for sugar products. Apifonda is fondant, chiefly aimed at early/mid winter feeding. Ambrosia is either "sugar dough" (fondant) or they also do a syrup.

From the Apifonda website:
"Apifonda
Micro-fine paste feed
Apifonda is a ready-made feed in paste form that is composed mainly of sucrose. It contains micro-fine crystals which are in average smaller than 1/100 millimeters. Every single crystal is coated with a thin film of syrup made of dissolved sugars, which prevents the clumping and crusting of the crystals. Therefore Apifonda can be easily carried off by the bees and swallowed directly."

Brochure for Ambrosia:
http://www.aulumgaard.com/files/Ambrosia%20Broschure_eng.pdf
From the site:
"Ambrosia Beefood Dough consists of microscopically fine sugar
crystals that are easily taken up by the bees. The crystals of this
ready-to-use food in paste form are surrounded by a thin film of
syrup containing a number of other sugar types in small amounts
such as fructose, glucose and maltose. Due to its low water content,
ambrosia Dough can be stored for months."

Your post makes it sound as though you're planning on compensating for low stores during winter. But there's still quite a bit of time to get a reasonable amount of stores in there if you don't think they will manage this themselves. Build-up feeding in Autumn is not usually a paste, it's nearly always fed as a fairly thick syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water or thereabouts). It's preferable to get enough stores in before winter if possible, rather than rely on fondant, at least in my opinion (although I know some beekeepers just sling a slab of fondant on when it gets cold and walk away!).

PS - Apologies if you already knew about this... if you didn't, though, your bees might benefit from your going on a course and/or investing in a book or two about basic beekeeping!

 

[BILL.HEARD]

just give good sugar syrup for winter feed, don't bother with all this other stuff on the market.
Feed as much as they need in Sept. and hopefully you should be able to leave them until the following March/April.

 

[gingerbees]

Thanks for your replies folks. Just to set your minds at ease we have done the courses prior to getting our bees, got the books and joined and are active in our local BBKA.

We have two hives now, one which is not being fed at all as it is strong with plenty of stores. The other is from a cast swarm and is only a couple of weeks old, so we are feeding it Ambrosia syrup which we got a good price on through our local BBKA. The feed is to give this small hive a bit of a chance of being strong for the winter, and allow them to concentrate on drawing out the frames in their new hive.

We understand the pros and cons of feeding syrups and fondants and how and when to go about giving them if we think they might help our bees, but as we are up in the wilds of Cumbria, we are looking ahead at what we may need to do as Winter approaches, hence we got some of the fondant. The reason for the question is becuase we are not familiar with the trade names and all of the books, even the Th......s catalogue refers to Apifonda but actually sells the Ambrosia feed paste.

We just wanted to know if these two products are interchangable in their uses and figured the combined wealth of expertese on here could help us out.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

No problem with feeding Ambrosia fondant as a top up if needed through the winter, my lot very much enjoyed their New Year treat (although later spurned it in favour of Neopol when that went on early Spring)

 

[Winker]

yeah i just got some Ambrosia fondant delivered, just in case i need it in winter as an emergency feed

 

[BBG]

just give good sugar syrup for winter feed, don't bother with all this other stuff on the market.
Feed as much as they need in Sept. and hopefully you should be able to leave them until the following March/April.

Do you put cooking oil in your vehicle's engine or specially formulated oil?

Use Ambrosia.

Gingerbees:
I'm sure Hamish at Struan Apiaries would be happy to sell you some and give you instruction or advice.

 

[oliver90owner]

Do you put cooking oil in your vehicle's engine or specially formulated oil?

I ask: Do you put expensive, fully synthetic engine oil in your 'run-around' Fiesta or similar? I think not. The same applies here. The bees will use a lot simply for conversion to thermal energy and Joules are Joules wherever they are.

Naturally bees use an approx 2% pollen in an 80% sugar product - honey. The 2% not used (the 'protien' part) is spotted over the landscape when the bees go on their cleansing flights. It is generally accepted that pure carbohydrate will allow longer between cleansing flight needs.

I actually go for the expensive stuff. I leave them with honey for their winter requirements. No chance of sugar syrup in my supers, if I can avoid it (and I reckon I need to as I use the jumbo frame format).

RAB

 

[gingerbees]

Thanks for the responses folks. My main question was " what is the difference between the two brands", after some research now on what is in both and the percentages I came to the conclusion that they are very similar indeed.
To make sure though I have talked to a few suppliers and they all agree they can be used for the same purposes, seeing as we have got a block of the Ambrosia feed paste, i think we will keep it in the cupboard as another tool in our Winter feed arsnel should we decide we need it.

 

[BBG]

Do you put cooking oil in your vehicle's engine or specially formulated oil?

I ask: Do you put expensive, fully synthetic engine oil in your 'run-around' Fiesta or similar? I think not. The same applies here. The bees will use a lot simply for conversion to thermal energy and Joules are Joules wherever they are.

RAB

No, I use manufacturer recommended. After all if a large firm (in this case two large firms) spend a lot of time and money researching a product they wish to supply to a limited market, I think you can be reasonably assured that what's knocked up at home (which is what I answered) is the far inferior product.

I and no doubt you, have seen the dismal product of poorly mixed sugar poured into feeders by the well meaning beek. Ugh!

If honey's so good, why do they put away vast quantities of almost impossible to use OSR.

Saying 'the bees know best' is like saying 'stock knows best' they don't, for one, if 'stock knew best' they wouldn't eat dried ragwort and die or become ill through it. There is a whole shed load of evidence to show 'they?' don't know best.

In Denmark, some beeks remove all brood comb and extract then feed with Ambrosia through winter. I am told the bees do not suffer the problems others get. The man telling me this has four hundred hives.

A beek from Scotland also told me he does virtually the same thing.

Honey is hard tack but gets them through the winter was the statement.

While I agree with you, or am hedging in leaving them honey but will feed Ambrosia too, I am trying to discover more information on this.

 

[Into the lions den]

I know the item I am replying to is quite old, but Apifonda is bee fondant made by Sudzucker, whose bee syrup (the original and possibly still the best,) is Api-Invert.

Ambrosia fondant is an identical product marketed by Nordzucker, who also do syrup under the same name, another excellent product. It does, however, pass through too many hands before it hits the beekeeper market in the UK, due to a complex chain of supplying agents, and as a result is overpriced for what you get. Ambrosia syrup marketing strategy has contained some false allegations about competing products being unsuitable (even toxic) to bees, when in truth all modern purpose made bee feeds are of excellent quality.

There is also Fondabee from Belgium, again more or less identical. The company, Belgosuc, make two syrups, Apisuc and Invertbee, the latter being pretty well identical to Ambrosia and Api-Invert, the former being a blend of starch and sucrose derived syrups. I use Apisuc with great success, and pay half or so what you are being asked for Ambrosia.

The fondants are pretty well identical, and all can be used as summer/autumn dearth feeds or as winter food. All the distinctions you are seeing is generated by the sales literature and the fact of the matter is that it is just talk to sell, the products are NOT actually different and can be used in just the same ways. ( So much identical in fact, that the only difference at the outset, on the prepacked 2.5Kg units, was the print on the bag, they were made on the same Sudzucker machinery and just put in different packs.) There is no need to pay high prices for specialist fondants anyway, as normal white bakers fondant does the same job, at least as a winter food, for a lot less money.

Another thread introduced the old chestnut about cane and beet sugars being of different qualities as bee feed. In antiquity this may have had some basis, but for at least the last 50 years it has been wholly false. Those premium bee feeds right at the top of the market....Ambrosia, Api-Invert etc?..........all made from BEET sugar.

To get good prices associations should be grouping together to buy full or part loads in, and if they did the true price of these syrups right now shopuld be in the region of £ 600 to 650 per tonne, a little less if you can take a full load. Ambrosia dearer due to number of bites at the cherry, not due to higher quality, even though superb. There are actually good grade competing products of varying formulations available from several suppliers throughout Europe.

Threads concerning sugar pricing have also bee prevalent. There is a global sugar shortage. Bee feed is going to be hard to find this winter, and all prices are set to RISE a good bit over the next few months. For smaller user supermarket purchase is the only way to go if making your own syrup. Sugar is a product featured in the standard shopping trolley of goods they use to compare against eachother and thus is used as a loss leader, and sold retail at below wholesale or even bulk pricing. Plain white granulated sugar actually trades at over 70p a kilo right now in pallet quantities, so prices at 60p or less are actually a bargain. Take advantage of what breaks you can get.

 

[gingerbees]

WOW - very informative. Thank you for the info.

 

[oliver90owner]

After all if a large firm (in this case two large firms) spend a lot of time and money researching a product they wish to supply to a limited market,

This can be easily countered by pointing out there are a few large companies out there selling extra speciall lubricants, 'you must have' Castoroil and Duckmans (a couple examples of them) make a whole range, but I don't have to use their finest 'cutting edge' lubricants for most applications.

The normal 'cooking' quality often works just as well for the larger part of the market, especially if given closer, regular attention. These two large companies are there to make a whacking great profit from what was basically sugar.

Perhaps an analogy might be Hivemaker's Thymol treatment and Apiguard.

One is far less expensive than the other but does the job perfectly adequately. It is just that some 'nous' is required to be able to make up the thymol and take due regard as to it's use. Some are best left to buy-in the expensive product. And even some of those have trouble deciphering the instructions, it seems - seeing all the posts that arise on the forum.

Oxalic acid treatment will be along shortly, and the same will apply to that.

I rather like the KISS principle rather than the alternative (Consumers Ripped Apart on Price)

 

[BBG]

After all if a large firm (in this case two large firms) spend a lot of time and money researching a product they wish to supply to a limited market,

This can be easily countered by pointing out there are a few large companies out there selling extra speciall lubricants, 'you must have' Castoroil and Duckmans (a couple examples of them) make a whole range, but I don't have to use their finest 'cutting edge' lubricants for most applications.

The normal 'cooking' quality often works just as well for the larger part of the market, especially if given closer, regular attention. These two large companies are there to make a whacking great profit from what was basically sugar.

Perhaps an analogy might be Hivemaker's Thymol treatment and Apiguard.

One is far less expensive than the other but does the job perfectly adequately. It is just that some 'nous' is required to be able to make up the thymol and take due regard as to it's use. Some are best left to buy-in the expensive product. And even some of those have trouble deciphering the instructions, it seems - seeing all the posts that arise on the forum.

Oxalic acid treatment will be along shortly, and the same will apply to that.

I rather like the KISS principle rather than the alternative (Consumers Ripped Apart on Price)

No, Hivemaker's mix is not a good analogy AND

your KISS is based on price - UGH!

Next, you'll be promulgating the use of Thornes' cheap foundation.

 

[oliver90owner]

your KISS is based on price - UGH!

The simple solutions are often the cheaper alternative - like 'replace' not 'repair'. Not necessarily the best environmentally, but simply cheaper beacause they refuse to stock component parts or the labour costs are higher.

I think the thymol analogy is a superb example. Buy in cheaper base items and DIY, or pay out an extortionate amount and buy it all pre-packaged. They both only kill mites if used properly. You pay for the convenience of the preparation and packaging - and quite a lot, too. And it still only kills the mites - and they are just as dead using a made-up recipe, as a bought-in package, but at about a quarter of the outlay.

The oxalic acid one will be the next. How much per dose when bought-in? About fourpence half-penny when made up in-house to the same formulation!

I am careful when I consider cost. It is not always cheapest. Take cedar hive boxes, for instance. More capital expenditure, but less maintenace, making them very competitive over the full life of the item.

But when it comes to feeding sugar, I will go for the simple one - straight sugar syrup. No long trips to pick it up, I can make up enough for my needs, and no marketing hype to pay for.

Of course I may not need to feed and I probably won't treat with oxalic acid either, if this season turns out like each of the last five years. But I am not banking on it. I have some sugar and I have some oxalic acid.

So yes, after consideration, the price is one of the main criteria in the case of autumn feed. I, and my bees, can survive without the expensive product. If tt was economically equivalent, I would reconsider, but it isn't an I do not see any distinct advantages to me for the extra cost. YMMV, of course. You may even be marketing it for them as an agent.

I am not an 'intensive' beekeeper, but I do realise that in the spring they will need protein (extra can be arranged, if pollen stocks are low) for brooding, as well as carbohydrate. I also know that all those well-fed bees will be just as dead, early into next season, as mine will be. Just the queens will be left, unless a few drones go through the winter (either naturally, or from any drone layers, that are not wanted but happen from time to time).

Refined sugar has been adequate for winter feeds for years and years and years. When the claims are justified, and not in-house marketing hype from selected data (yes, I am cynical and I read product endorsements, etc, and carefully attribute them with all the credit they deserve), call me again.

So - UGH! to you too!

 

[BBG]

"I think the thymol analogy is a superb example."

I use thymol because I set much store by what the man who has given us the recipe says - not because of cost.

Ambrosia - no don't sell it.

Cute suggestions that someone may have self-interest in a subject they open or present for discussion, contribute nothing other than smugness and the last S in your acronym.

As another member has said, if associations get together and bulk purchase, the price plummets even further than the £17+/- per 22.5Kg.

RAB, the statement "We've always done it this way" - we expect more from you!

 

[oliver90owner]

RAB, the statement "We've always done it this way" - we expect more from you!

Now you are down to the level of telling plain lies, I think. I think I am owed a retraction, at the very least.

You are simply making things up to try to argue your point. That is not so very clever of you.

Alternatively, reporting that, as though I wrote it in this thread is a gutter tactic. I have said nothing of the sort. Can't be bothered to debate anything with somone who simply makes things up. That makes me (and others, perhaps) wonder if you are making up the rest of your posts. About the same as the other acronym I could have used earlier (this one: Consumers Ripped Apart on Price).

As for your reason for using Thymol - ha - many use thymol against the mite. It is the active component of Apiguard and several other proprietary products, if you hadn't noticed. I don't actually deal with thymol treatment in exactly the same way as Hivemaker but it is still thymol which removes the mites. I could quite easily use Apiguard, but at about 4 times the cost and with similar efficacy . I don't. I use the 'just as effective' but much cheaper solution to the same problem.

 

[BBG]

"I have said nothing of the sort."

You reckon?

"Refined sugar has been adequate for winter feeds for years and years and years. " from your post number 17

equals


"We've always done it this way"

wasn't a direct quote but a jocularity as in "it's a fair cop guv" or many other cliches - it is however exactly what your statement says.

Your last paragraph is a ramble and as you had referred to:

"Perhaps an analogy might be Hivemaker's Thymol treatment and Apiguard."

in the previous post, which I picked up and said I used that recipe because of the man not the cost.

Whether you use that thymol recipe or not is of no interest to me. What you do is of interest - so tell us your system.

RAB, nil retraction and it is beginning to appear that the other members who have complained about your nit-picking behaviour may be right.