Fondant - above or below crownboard?

[Tom Bick]

And the bit I like is to the touch the fondant as it is ever so slightly warm and you know that the insulation is good in that heat is not escaping from the fondant. Although you cannot see the bees you know they are alive. When they do start to eat through the fondant and you can see them in early spring that is also wonderful.

I used to have a 2nd piece of insulation over the bag of fondant but I have filled in that void in the rooves with insulation and covered it with ply so the roof is insulated all year round and as a result just need the insulation around the bag of fondant.

 

[coffin dodger]

Hi All,
I bought a few crownboards and extended the centre slot to almost side to side, put this on top of the brood box cut a similar size strip of plastic from the slab of fondant and put the full 12.5kg slab right over the slot. My idea with this is that it reduces the chances of isolation starvation, if the bees cluster towards the centre of the frames, wherever they are the fondant is almost right above them.

Regards
CD

 

[Luminos]

12.5kg slab?

 

[coffin dodger]

12.5kg slab?

Yes, A full 12.5 kg box on each hive, it worked well for me last year and both hives came through the winter OK. the bees can take what they want when they need it and whats left over in the spring gets disolved into 1:1 syrup.

Regards
CD

 

[Tom Bick]

Out of interest how much of the 12.5kg was left in the spring.

If fondant was the only winter feed then 12.5kg would be about right or even more depending on what stores the bb already had but generally not placed over the crown board.

 

[Luminos]

Yes, A full 12.5 kg box on each hive, it worked well for me last year and both hives came through the winter OK. the bees can take what they want when they need it and whats left over in the spring gets disolved into 1:1 syrup.

Regards
CD

Wow, none of mine ate more than a 2.5kg slab, except for one, which had 3 slabs!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Wow indeed - last winter, six hives, went into winter a bit light I thought - less than two slabs between them all - and a lot of that was one hive which went into spring buildup overdrive very early

 

[coffin dodger]

Out of interest how much of the 12.5kg was left in the spring.

If fondant was the only winter feed then 12.5kg would be about right or even more depending on what stores the bb already had but generally not placed over the crown board.

On the first inspection of the year (23rd April and coinciding with a visit from the RBI) there was roughly around a third of the fondant left on each hive, as mentioned earlier, I've 'slotted' the crown boards to give access to the fondant right across the centre of the hive, you could clearly see how the bees had worked their way across and up.

Regards
CD

 

[drstitson]

As i've repeatedly stated in various threads recently - in my case those hives that actually require fondant will get a 1/3 - 1/2 slab chunk of fondant (so thats 4-6kg). some might use it all, others just a bit.