Adding fondant

Much to my surprise, two of the three hives that I inspected over the last two days were practically devoid of honey stores.

The two hives have very large colonies and I guess that a lot of bees need a lot of food. The smaller colony in the third hive (that I have complained about in previous posts) is still small, but quite well provided for.

There seems to be a gap between the end of the summer flowers and the ivy coming on stream.

In first photo, I cut a window in the fondant package.

In the second photo, you can see it placed window-side-down over the opening in the top cover (which in this case is perspex.)

Each bag is 2.5kg of a mix of -oses (sucrose, glucose, etc) that the bees find amenable.

They will take this bagful down into the comb within a week. And at a few micrograms at a time, that's a lorra lorra trips.