The Candy Board

My bees have had a pretty ropey year and although I've fed them syrup till they're no longer taking it I'm not entirely convinced they have enough to get through the winter ahead. We're expecting the worst winter in 60 years according to long range weather forecasting although it's not unknown for the Met Office to be a little out I'd rather err on the side of caution so in case of any shortfall in the bee's food stores I've decided to add a Candy Board to each hive

A Candy Board, also called Sugar Board, is basically a wooden frame full of sugar that goes in the hive directly above the bees. If they run out of food and start to climb upwards they can find it and start eating. Obviously pouring a few kilos of sugar into a square wooden frame is just going to leave you with and empty frame a messy floor  so you need to add a little water to make the sugar cake together, put a wire mesh to hold it all up and add something to hold the wet sugar as it sets. They're fairly simple to make really, there's quite a good 'How To' here or you could just read on.

First up was making the wooden frame. A Commercial brood box has the same outer dimensions as a National brood box which is 46.5cm square. I decided to use some 45x75mm wood for the project, it doesn't really need to be that thick, 22mm will do in fact but I wanted them to be very solid so they'll survive a few winters and I figured the extra thickness might reduce heat loss too. There's a few ways you could put the frame together I opted to cut the ends of the sides diagonally at 45 degrees and screw them together. Time to break out the mitre saw that's been kicking about in the shed for a few years. It's meant to be bench mounted really and previously I've used it on the ground standing on it to hold it steady but this time I bolted the base to a piece of scrap wood and clamped that in the workbench which kept it still and made it so much easier (safer!) to use.

Guess the patio needs a clean then

I also rubbed the blade with a wax candle to stop it sticking to the wood and the top bar of the saw to keep it moving smoothly too. A little while later (okay a little while, a coffee break, and another little while later), I had 12 isosceles trapezoids, a tired arm and a couple of blisters. I also got some wire mesh, the holes need to be big enough for the bees to get through unimpeded, I opted for 13mm mesh just because that's what the shop had.

Pretty much finished. Not.

Turns out holding the frames square to pre drill and screw the corners together was a tricky business but eventually I had 4 square wooden frames held together by three screws per corner.

Squares

 That done the frames needed wire mesh stapling into place, and a hole drilling into one side of each. The mesh was stapled to the inner vertical sides of the frame so they didn't interfere with the fit of the candyboard to the hive. The hole has two purposes one is it allows ventilation and the other to allow the bees a second entrance for in case the lower exit gets blocked, by for example a load dead bees or snow or whatever. I used a 10mm drill bit for that. It just needed to be big enough to let one bee out and given that a bee space is 9mm wide that should be adequate for an easily defensible entrance.

Empty Candy Boards

With the woodwork done they just needed the food adding. I bought 15kilos of sugar so I could put 5 in each board. There's recipes for the filling all over the net, one here, it seems to come down to one cup of sugar per five pounds of sugar and a spoonful white or apple cider vinegar if you like. I had some left over 2:1 syrup that the bees hadn't taken so I opted to use that instead of adding water. Normally you place newspaper of something similar over the mesh to hold the syrup as it sets then later the bees chew through it to reach the sugar. However I had read on another blog that this could mean there were bits of paper and pulp in the left over sugar which a thrifty beekeeper might want to use to make 1:1 syrup in the spring, so instead I used some plastic wrap on the bottoms of the boards so I could pop the sugar in to dry then remove it before adding the boards to the hives -should make it a little more accessible to the bees if they need it too.

7 kilos of sugar and a little syrup

Using a huge stainless steel pan I dropped in 7 KG of granulated white sugar to start and added some syrup and started to stir. It was really hard work. I added more syrup as I progressed till the sugar was all a little damp then I started adding it to the boards.  The rest of the sugar I mixed in smaller batches before adding to the boards.

Small gap near the entrance/exit.

There needs to be a small gap in the sugar near the entrance/exit hole for ventilation and so the bees can get in and out of it if they need to. Some people leave in wooden blocks or a plastic box whilst the sugar sets, I just pulled the stuff back so there was a small gap. I did the same in all three boards -although in the picture below you can't actually tell.

Pollen supplement

I'd read a few people talking about adding pollen supplement to their candyboards so I bought a kilo of Candipolline Gold from Fragile Planet. Looking at the website it says it's a made of sugar, milk and egg proteins and and sterilised bee pollen -sterilised with gamma rays no less. Wasn't it Gamma radiation that turned Dr Banner into the Hulk? Well if I have angry green bees in spring I guess I'll know why... I wrapped each patty in plastic except for the side that's exposed to the bees, I'm not sure if the plastic is totally necessary but all the images I've seen have the plastic still on so I figured I'd follow suit.

Candy Boards, filled and waiting to go

Next up they just had to dry. I decided to pop them on the hives when I opened them to do the Oxalic Acid treatment  as I don't want to be messing them about too much when it's cold. When the sugar had dried it was set like rock. As well as providing emergency food if needed the huge block of sugar should also act as a humidity sink helping keep it nice and dry in the hives over winter.

Candy boards on the hives

A fortnight later I put the boards onto the hives. After a little smoke to push the bees down into the the frames I place the boards directly on top of the brood boxes with the entrance/ventilation holes facing the same direction as the hive entrances. Hopefully they won't be needed and the sugar that's left in Spring will be used to make syrup but if the bees do find themselves short on supplies over winter it's there for them.

Now, much to their relief no doubt, I get to leave the bees alone for a few months.