In this episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping, Laurence Edwards of Black Mountain Honey reviews a 1 kg slab of Hive Alive fondant, a winter feeding product for honeybee colonies. He describes the packaging, lists the declared ingredients (lemongrass oil, Hive Alive feeding booster, Irish seaweed extract, vitamins and amino acids) and the product’s marketing claims (fine particle size, intestinal well‑being, no GM ingredients, no high‑fructose corn syrup). Edwards tastes the fondant on camera, noting flavors of lemongrass, thymol, seaweed and sweetness, and raises a regulatory point: thymol‑treated syrup is not VMD‑approved, yet Hive Alive is a registered product that may contain thymol. He explains his typical winter feeding schedule (placing fondant in December/January, removing around April) and demonstrates cutting a square from the slab and placing it over the colony’s feeding hole. He then installs the fondant in a hive, observes that the bees readily consume it, and acknowledges the limited sample size. Edwards concludes with a disclaimer that he cannot yet confirm any superiority or health benefits, but plans to monitor the colonies over the season. The video ends with a call to subscribe.
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Today I'm going to take a look at the 1 kilogram pouches of Hive Alive fondant. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Hive Alive have very kindly sent me 3 kilogram pouches of their new Hive Alive fondant. I said I'd just do a quick video on it, talk about what the product is, why you should use it, When to put it onto your colonies, and why it's designed to be a little bit better than other fondants. So when I'm buying my queens from abroad, I buy loads of queens, they always get imported. Every single time, the fondant that's in them is like flavoured. It's always got lemongrass oil in it, and it's something that's religiously done on the continent. This Hive Alive fondant here, it's got lemongrass oil in it. It's also got Hive Alive in it as well, which is a feeding booster solution, all mixed together to give you supposedly a superior fondant. Now I'm not going to claim that this fondant is superior to any other fondant on the market because I've not done side-by-side tests and I don't know that. However, it looks like really nice fondant. It's got some good claims on the front of the package as well. So saying got very fine particle size for easy digestion for the bees. Nice. I might have a little taste of it in a little bit as well. It's saying that the Hive Alive element that's added to this fondant promotes intestinal well-being. Very nice. Everything that you can do for the bees is always welcome. It's got a blend of scientifically extracted Irish seaweed within the fondant. Very nice. I use a seaweed extract for my tomatoes, so what's good for the tomatoes is definitely good for the bees. It's got a blend of vitamins and amino acids to help the nutritional requirement of the bees and to help them build up stronger. Very nice. I agree with all of that in that it's good stuff to have if it works, and from what I've seen with Hive Alive, it is a really, really good product as well. I know a lot of people that by Hive Alive, and they put it in all of their feed. So it's nice that it comes in a fondant as well, because when you're boosting your colonies up, I find the majority of the time when I put fondant onto a colony is like December or January time. I leave that fondant on and I generally take it off around April. So if this does what it says on the packaging, goes onto my colonies at the right time of the year, it's going to give them that boost coming into spring. Last couple of things, it says no genetically modified ingredients, which is good. And then finally, it's got no high fructose corn syrup in the mix. Right, I think the first thing for me to do is to open it up and have a little bit of a taste. But before I do that, just talk a little bit about the packaging again. Comes in little slabs like this, 1 kilogram slabs. I think they do a 2 kilogram slab as well. I would always go with a 2 kilogram personally, much prefer a 2 kilogram to a 1 kilogram. The pre-packaged versions though are very handy, means you can just cut a little square up, pop it onto your colony, everything's good to go. Definitely though, I'm going to open it up and I'm going to have a little bit of a taste. Because I have a secret fetish for fondant that's got lemongrass oil in it. Right, so with these portions out here, what I always do with them, I just cut myself out a little square like that, and then you've got a perfect square that you can put directly over your feeding hole. I'll show you how to do that in a minute. First, I'm gonna have a taste. And like I said, I'm a little bit crazy when it comes to this. I really like the taste of that. It tastes like a chemical experiment that's gone wrong. But I'm tasting lemongrass. I'm tasting thymol in there as well. Maybe getting a little bit of seaweed, and then obviously it's nice and sweet as well. Whether that's good for me, I don't know. So maybe Hive Alive, if you're watching this video, hopefully I can eat this. Maybe comment below in the box. But I like the taste of it. I really like the thymol element of that as well. Right, I've just eaten some more. I'm gonna have to speak to Hive Alive because I want to know what is actually in the Hive Alive. I can taste thymol. I can taste it in my mouth. It's unmistakable thymol. So hopefully I'm getting that right. If it is thymol, I think this is a really, really interesting product because you're not allowed to feed your colonies with thymolated syrup. The VMD do not allow that. It's not an approved medicine. You can't go mixing thymol into your sugar syrup, feeding it to your colonies, and think that's acceptable. So you're not allowed to do that. However, you're allowed to feed them with Hive Alive because that's a registered product That's registered with the VMD. So really interesting to see if they've got that in there. Could be a good habit to get into if your bees do have issues with Nosema, because as we know, thymol's really good at tackling any issues with Nosema. Right, I promise I'm going to stop eating this now. Really, really nice. I'm going to open up this beehive. I'm going to get this one on here. I'll follow this video up later on in the year. I know the bees are going to eat this because I've never put any fondant on a colony and they've not eaten it. So I think the fact that they've eaten it is not really going to tell me a huge amount, and the sample size isn't going to be massive either. I'm going to get it on there though. Obviously you can make up your own mind. I just wanted to let you know they do Hive Alive fondant now. I've tasted it, I quite like the taste of it. So if you want to be crazy like me and just eat fondant that's made for bees, feel free. But I think it's a good product for bees, and you get that added benefit if you're getting the Hive Alive into your fondant and feeding them at the right time of year. Right, so here is the inside of the colony. This one has only been fed on fondant, really nice and heavy. And as you can see, they have taken down all of that fondant. So I'm just going to whip off the blue plastic there, and I'm just going to replace it with my Hive Alive 1 kilogram fondant. So there's my bees, they're looking very happy indeed. That bit of water there was just condensation that was sitting on that blue plastic there, so they'll work that down and get rid of that. Just going to take my fondant now, my Hive Alive fondant, Made sure that strip underneath is open. Just going to place that directly over the hole, and then we'll see how we get on, see if the bees enjoy it as much as I did. Right, so there we go, that's it for the video. Obviously I'm not endorsing that product. I'm not saying this product, Hive Alive Fondant, is better than all the other fondants on the market because I don't know. This is the first time I've ever used it. All I can say as an absolute certainty is that I quite like it, tastes really nice, and I know the bees will use it. Is that going to give them any benefit? I'll have to wait and see. I've got another couple of packages here. I'm going to put them on some of the other colonies in this apiary, and I'll just see what they're building up like. Obviously, I can't really do too much analysis because the sample size is so low. All I can tell you is if the bees are eating it, they're probably enjoying it, and I'm quite enjoying it as well. It's got added stuff in that has supposed benefits. Whether they're going to come to fruition, I don't know. We'll take a look later on in the year. Hope you enjoyed that video though. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video. I'll see you next time.
