Stop Bees Starving – How To Add Emergency Fondant Directly to the Cluster

In this video, I'm going to show you how to prevent your colonies starving through isolation starvation. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Colonies starving over the winter is the most frustrating thing in the world, but even worse than that is when they starve and they've still got stores left over. And this can happen in really, really cold snaps. The bees move around the hive in a very, very strange way. Don't really understand fully why they do that, but they can isolate themselves away from the stores. However, there's a really easy trick to make sure that that never ever happens, and I can safely say over hundreds of colonies over a few years, I've never ever lost a colony to isolation starvation when I've done this. So you first off, you need to understand why bees Die through isolation starvation. They'll move around the colony trying to find that food, but if they move away from it and then it gets really, really cold, they won't move. It's just too cold for that colony to move, and then they'll starve. However, the way bees always work is they start at the bottom. You see this? This is why the brood nest is at the bottom and the honey's above. They do it over winter. They start at the bottom and they just move their way upwards. Always going upwards, so they're never going to starve at the bottom. Doesn't really happen like that. I've never ever seen that in a colony where they starve and there's honey above them, because it's always easy for them to move upwards because all they're doing is moving through the frames. So the simple method to make sure that your colonies don't die through isolation starvation is to whack on a great big slab of fondant on the top of the frames touching where that cluster will end up. I do this on all of my colonies, every single one now, because for the sake of 6 kg of fondant, cost me maybe £4 or £5, doesn't impact the bees in any way whatsoever. If you put a queen excluder over it, that will stop any drips going down as well. And if you've got a polyashforth feeder, it's super, super easy, just flip it upside down, keeps everything nice and snug and cozy. If you've not got that, a super with a piece of Celotex inside will do exactly the same job. For a little bit cheaper as well. But I just think, why wouldn't you do that? The worst case scenario, absolute worst case scenario, is they don't touch any of it, and in the spring you need to scrape it off the queen excluder, and then the bees will clean it up for you. That is the worst case scenario. So this is my first colony, really good looking colony covering all 10 frames, big massive colony. Really happy with the size of this colony. I'm gonna get some fondant on this one now and close it up. I'm gonna go and stick a big slab of fondant on top of this colony, and I'm gonna make sure that they don't die through isolation starvation. So this is the box of fondant I'm gonna use to stop the colonies starving through isolation starvation, and it's massive. It's a big 12.5 kilo block of baker's fondant. I do not buy into the fact that baker's fondant is not good for bees. I've used this for years. I know bee farmers who have got thousands of colonies that only use baker's fondant, and I know that it's produced in the same factories that make the more expensive beekeeping fondant. However, we'll probably keep that one for a separate video. I use Baco fondant though, standard baker's fondant, 12.5 kilo block, and I'll split this between these 2 colonies here, chop it straight down the middle, get it onto the crown board, flip that polyashforth feeder all the way over That will keep the bees going and that will prevent isolation starvation. So get your cleaver. I made this cleaver, very proud of it. Really, really good for chopping up fondant. And you take out your big slab of fondant. So heavy, 12.5 kilos. Really, really big slab. Pop that on there like that. And then what I do is I get my cleaver, get your knife, spade works really good on this as well. And you just wanna get through, chop that straight in half like that. Once you get through it a bit, you can just open it up, chop it into 2. I'm gonna leave that in real time because it really doesn't take that long to do it, and that's not really a good reason to use the beekeeping fondant because it doesn't take too long to chop this stuff up. Right, so I'm gonna pop that one off over to one side, and I've got my fondant with blue plastic all the way around it. So I like to take that back like this, open it up, give good access to that fondant. You need to make sure that the bees have access to the white fondant, not just the blue plastic, 'cause it takes them a long time to chew through it. You don't want your bees chewing through plastic anyway. But then on the top side, I leave the blue plastic on. Keeps it nice and moist, keeps it accessible for the bees, stops it running too much. Really good idea to keep that blue plastic on. So what I like to do, I'll just chop the blue plastic round where it can come off with the cleaver, and then you've got one open face, and I'll just wrap that round the open face. So then you're left with something like this, which is only one open face, covered up that face there. The other side underneath, that's completely covered in blue plastic. This is what we're gonna use to stop isolation starvation. So let's get into the bees. November the 15th, they are light, really, really light. This apiary here is crazy because you think they're gonna be big and strong, You're lifting them up and they really are a little bit light. And it's because it's been so warm, it's been so mild. These are gonna be big. It's gonna be a big, strong colony of bees. Middle of November bodes well though, 'cause all I need to do, make sure they're well fed and they're gonna be jumbo monster colonies come the spring. So as you can see, I leave my queen excluders on all the way throughout the year now. I used to take them off, but I find it makes my life a little bit easier. And I do say a little bit, 'cause you do get this little bit of burr comb there, which is a little bit annoying. But it gives me the ability just to plonk that fondant straight on top there. You can see here they're hefting light, but it's a big, big colony. This is a prime candidate for just general starvation, let alone isolation starvation. So these guys need that topping up of fondant anyway. You could continue to feed 2:1 and they would still take it down on the warm days, but personally I really like feeding fondant. I find this time of the year It's nice and quick, and the bees do really, really well on it as well. So I'm going to stick to the method that works for me. I'm going to get some fondant on here now to stop these guys, A, starving at all, but B, mitigating any isolation starvation. So all I'm going to do is I'm just going to take this block of fondant, gently put that down onto the bees. You might think that you're going to squish some bees. They do tend to get out from there. Whenever I take it off in the spring, There's no more bees there. And it's as simple as that. The bees are now prepared against that isolation starvation. They will work that fondant now. If there's any empty gaps, they'll work that down, bring the water in, they'll put it into the frames. But as soon as it gets colder, they'll stop doing that and they will just use it as a food source, see it as a food source as well. So there we go. That's it. Simple as that. I've mitigated isolation starvation as best as I possibly can. And it's cost me £5. So if your bees are hefting light and you don't want to feed them 2:1 syrup late on into the year, you can definitely get the fondant on, and 99 times out of 100, that will mitigate isolation starvation. The final thing that we need to do is put the Ashford feeder back on, and this is why this is my biggest beehive upgrade. Doesn't matter what manufacturer you get. Suenti ones are a nightmare because you've got to put the strips on yourself. The Abelo ones are loads better, But even a Milla feeder from any of the other manufacturers, you can do this in 2 sections. But look how simple it is to put this back on. All I've done, flipped it upside down, and I've got space to put a huge slab of fondant. So there you go, simple as that. It's no-nonsense beekeeping for a reason. Don't faff around when it comes to fondant. 6 kilograms, half a block, do it with a spade, with a cleaver that I've got there, stick it on, blue plastic over the top, keep it nice and moist. Make sure the bees have good access all the way round. Nice big slab of it. You will not have colonies die through isolation starvation if you do that on a single brood setup. That's really important here. Make sure that's on a single brood setup. If you're doing it on a double brood setup, they can get lost somewhere in that double brood configuration. But if you're doing it on double brood configuration, they should have plenty of stores to see them through. And it's kind of up to the gods if they work themselves into a little bit of a position where they can't access that feed. Not a huge amount you can do about that apart from starting to stuff it down the frames, which gets a little bit messy for my liking. Not something I'd recommend. So I hope you enjoyed that video. I hope you found it useful. Thanks for watching. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.