Winter feeding: fondant or table sugar?

[robirot]

Well i din't know about lose of foragers, since i only move my hives during night with open entrace (well you propably know not very common in germany, and a lot of people told me that would be crazy. Well one time this year i only had my Fiesta and stuffed 5 hives into it, no problem, all open entrance).
Only for mating nucs i din't care, if i live them from my mating apiary, to my storage and working apiary, i just move them and good.

Well, I do it the same way. And I have put open colonies in my van, too. First I put on a veil, but later on discarded. I wished for a policeman to stop me with all the beards on the boxes. 
Open boxes is SO MUCH MORE TRANQUIL. Bees just don`t really notice while they notice a closed entrance very well.

Same thoughts her. But i started i mainly run the Wanderboden, with only 9 mm entrance and a couple oft them i got with permanently closed bottoms and oft course didn't mark them.

Also never got stopped by the police, but always the same thought, propably would only bee, are they strapped down propper, OK havr a good ride. For the veil i rather got the problem that i always forget to take it, exept when i visited one now discobtinued hive. Well i didn't visit that 2 months this year cause i lost my veil.

[Hops Brewster]

I dunno, but I figure fondant is just table sugar cooked until it's soft candy.  so I simply make sugar bricks and avoid the cooking part.
More work than I'm inclined to do.  They use the sugar bricks just fine, because the moisture from their respiration makes a syrup of the bottom surface.
Last winter 2 out of 3 hives used the sugar bricks instead of honey stores on the outside frames.  3rd hive managed to move laterally to honey reserves instead of moving up.

Fondant actually is icing sugar mixed with inverted syrup, not cooked sugar, that yield rock hard candy blocks.

How do you make fondant??  How do you invert sugar?
The consistency of the candy depends entirely upon the temperature to which the sugar is cooked.  Fondant is a 'soft ball' stage of cooking, taking it off the heat at a lower temperature.  Hard candy is made by cooking the sugar to a much higher temperature known as 'hard crack'.

Heating (cooking) sugar is one method of inverting it.  Adding acid is another. 

[robirot]

How do you make fondant??  How do you invert sugar?
The consistency of the candy depends entirely upon the temperature to which the sugar is cooked.  Fondant is a 'soft ball' stage of cooking, taking it off the heat at a lower temperature.  Hard candy is made by cooking the sugar to a much higher temperature known as 'hard crack'.

Heating (cooking) sugar is one method of inverting it.  Adding acid is another.

Realy easy, most of my foundant used I just buy straight from the beesupplier. It's cheap enough to not be worth the hassle.

But if i make it myself, if i don't have enough. I just mix icing sugar with ready made syrup. HF 15-75 or Invertbee is what i usally use.

If i have some honey that can't be sold at hand, i just dilute it with some water (about. 20%) and use that instead of the syrup.

No heating involved in making fondant.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Mr. Robirot, greetings.  Mr. Hops accurately described the making of fondant.  However your method will work also without heat because you are adding HF15-75 which is high fructose 15% to 75% which was made with heat and acid such as vinegar or lemon juice.  So you get to skip the heat process by adding already heated HF.  You mention icing sugar; I am not sure what exactly this is, so could you elaborate?

The percentage you list 15-75???? Is this a typo, In the US, the subject item is HFCS with either a 55% or 40% thus HFCS-40 or HFCS-55. This is expensive in the US in part due to US sugar import laws.  So we make fondant, as Hops said, we have to heat sugar to 234F with the addition an acid.  Lower temps makes sticky goo, 234F makes pliable fondant, higher F makes hard candy and some toxic compounds if heated to high.

Just a side note to beeks in Germany and abroad.  I am assuming English is a second language due to your location, Germany:  I just want to say in a word IMPRESSIVE: that is, your English writing skills are impressive.
Blessings

[blackforest beekeeper]

Mr. Van (I guess it is your surname?),
thanks for the bundle of flowers. I did spent a year in OHIO. It`s been a quarter of a century past and I am loosing it a bit. Also, I guess being understood is more important than 100% correctness in orthography and grammar. I do enjoy English. I did enjoy my stay in Ohio. (I enjoy German, also.)
By the way: i was in northern Ohio. Compared to my place: black forest, very southwest of Germany, but in the hills: Ohio was a lot warmer. Summers hotter, more humid, a lot more humid. Winters were shorter in Ohio, more mild weather in between.
To whom it may concern: The Black Forest is a typical vacation area for taking hikes and such. Covered with fir- and pinetrees. Hills around me are at the most 3000 feet. I live at 1500 appr. But in a moist and cool part, sort of.

[blackforest beekeeper]

Mr. Van, would You be so nice as to explain to me the making of fondant? As certified organic fondant is more than twice the price of sugar, I am interested in making it myself, too.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

BlackForest, fir trees do something to the air to give it such a clean fresh smell.  The scent of the fir tree is the reason, I believe.  Enjoy your scenic area, I bet it is expensive, your area.

Fondant:  4 parts of sugar {table sugar}to one part water by weight, not volume and add 1/4 cup of acid, vinegar or lemon juice.  Bring to moderate boil which at sea level will be 234F and maintain this temp for 15 minutes.  Let cool and shape at will.  If the fondant is gooey, sticky, unworkable, then the temp was to low.  If the fondant is hard not workable then the temp was to high.

A little chemistry, if you hate chemistry, I understand and apologize so skip the following:  The table sugar is composed of glucose and fructose, 50% of each joined together.  The heating with acid breaks apart the sugar into individual sugars of glucose and fructose.  The process is called inversion, because when heated with acid the sugar reverts to its basic components.  So why not call the process reversion: easy answer,,,, that would be to easy and make use of common sense which is prohibited in science.

Honeybees have a chemical in their stomach called invertase which inverts table sugar just like heating with acid.  Once inverted the sugars can now pass into the blood stream.  Table sugar cannot pass directly into the blood stream, in neither bees or mammals, the sugar must be inverted as called with bees or digested as it is called with mammals.
Blessings

[Acebird]

I guess we should all call it digestion then. 

[blackforest beekeeper]

Mr. Van,
thank You so far. I will try. But as for the fine points of that recipe I must inquire of You:
4 parts sugar, 1 part water, 1 cup of acid (5%`?). I`d rather have the acid in parts, too. Or the sugar and water in lbs or kg, whatever. Obviously, 1 tablespoon of sugar with a bit of water won?t do with a cup of vinegar?
thanks for Your patience.
Blessings to You,
BlackForestBeekeeper
PS: This mess with lbs, cups, meters, inches and liters, Fs and Cs is just ridiculous in times of global net.  Maybe we should all agree on one way in a soon future. I don`t really care which one. I can do with either system.

[blackforest beekeeper]

From my Ohio-times I have a relict: A cup-measuring-"cup". I measure with this the amount of bees going into a mating nuc of swiss design.

[BeeMaster2]

Blackforest,
We were supposed to switch to the metric system back in the 70s but our weak politicians were afraid to enforce the completion of the switch. I had to learn both systems as part of the preparations for the switch. Metric is much easier to use than what we use.
Jim

[robirot]

Mr. Robirot, greetings.  Mr. Hops accurately described the making of fondant.  However your method will work also without heat because you are adding HF15-75 which is high fructose 15% to 75% which was made with heat and acid such as vinegar or lemon juice.  So you get to skip the heat process by adding already heated HF.  You mention icing sugar; I am not sure what exactly this is, so could you elaborate?

The percentage you list 15-75???? Is this a typo, In the US, the subject item is HFCS with either a 55% or 40% thus HFCS-40 or HFCS-55. This is expensive in the US in part due to US sugar import laws.  So we make fondant, as Hops said, we have to heat sugar to 234F with the addition an acid.  Lower temps makes sticky goo, 234F makes pliable fondant, higher F makes hard candy and some toxic compounds if heated to high.

Just a side note to beeks in Germany and abroad.  I am assuming English is a second language due to your location, Germany:  I just want to say in a word IMPRESSIVE: that is, your English writing skills are impressive.
Blessings

Mr. Robirot, greetings.  Mr. Hops accurately described the making of fondant.  However your method will work also without heat because you are adding HF15-75 which is high fructose 15% to 75% which was made with heat and acid such as vinegar or lemon juice.  So you get to skip the heat process by adding already heated HF.  You mention icing sugar; I am not sure what exactly this is, so could you elaborate?

The percentage you list 15-75???? Is this a typo, In the US, the subject item is HFCS with either a 55% or 40% thus HFCS-40 or HFCS-55. This is expensive in the US in part due to US sugar import laws.  So we make fondant, as Hops said, we have to heat sugar to 234F with the addition an acid.  Lower temps makes sticky goo, 234F makes pliable fondant, higher F makes hard candy and some toxic compounds if heated to high.

Just a side note to beeks in Germany and abroad.  I am assuming English is a second language due to your location, Germany:  I just want to say in a word IMPRESSIVE: that is, your English writing skills are impressive.
Blessings

Icing sugar, also known as powdered vor confectioners sugar, is just milled sugar like used to dust cakes.
Yes HF 15-75 is a syrup made from wheat starch, using 40 or 50% works perfect too.
Actually syrup made from corn or wheat is to be preferred since it is made using enzymes. Inverting sugar is also possible enzymatic by using invertin. Using acid is problematic due to the formation of HMF.

If you want to invert the sugar with acid yourself for fondant, i would rather tend to make the syrup first and then mix that with powdered sugar, to reduce HMF content.

I don't know, how much is powdered sugar for you?

Well i spend 9 months in Australia, a couple months in the US and got a university degree in chemistry, which requires the use of english. Well makes myself keep the fluent speaking up and thanks to the fact that i had to learn english as second language, i had to learn it from the bottom up, and am writing it better then german (at least if the autocorrect doesn't kicks in).

[robirot]

A little chemistry, if you hate chemistry, I understand and apologize so skip the following:  The table sugar is composed of glucose and fructose, 50% of each joined together.  The heating with acid breaks apart the sugar into individual sugars of glucose and fructose.  The process is called inversion, because when heated with acid the sugar reverts to its basic components.  So why not call the process reversion: easy answer,,,, that would be to easy and make use of common sense which is prohibited in science.

Well because the inverting is not referring to the splitting of the bond, but reffers to the change in the Rotation of the light send through a vial of the sugar solutions.

Mr. Van,
thank You so far. I will try. But as for the fine points of that recipe I must inquire of You:
4 parts sugar, 1 part water, 1 cup of acid (5%`?). I`d rather have the acid in parts, too. Or the sugar and water in lbs or kg, whatever. Obviously, 1 tablespoon of sugar with a bit of water won?t do with a cup of vinegar?

The ammount is not that important, 1 cup should be enough for 10 L.

Did you have a look at Geller, they habe quite good prices, even for Bio.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Mr. Van,
thank You so far. I will try. But as for the fine points of that recipe I must inquire of You:
4 parts sugar, 1 part water, 1 cup of acid (5%`?). I`d rather have the acid in parts, too. Or the sugar and water in lbs or kg, whatever. Obviously, 1 tablespoon of sugar with a bit of water won?t do with a cup of vinegar?
thanks for Your patience.
Blessings to You,
BlackForestBeekeeper
PS: This mess with lbs, cups, meters, inches and liters, Fs and Cs is just ridiculous in times of global net.  Maybe we should all agree on one way in a soon future. I don`t really care which one. I can do with either system.

Ok, Buddy:

2 kilograms of sugar or 4.4 pounds
1/2 kilogram water or 1.1 pound
Acid: vinegar/lemon juice, this quantity is not so important say 300ml or 300 gram.  The acid will cook out but starts the process.

Mix all together and bring to boil 112.2 C or 234F {at sea level}for 15 minutes.  Your elevation will boil at lower temp.
Blessings

[cao]

I use sugar bricks as insurance for the hives(nucs) that do not put on enough weight for the winter.  They have worked well for me and require no cooking.  I just mix 5 lbs(12 cups) sugar with 6-7 ounces water/with a splash of vinegar.  Spread it out on some parchment paper however thick and whatever size you need it and let air dry for a couple days/weeks.  I usually let it dry for a couple days, then carefully flip the bricks over to let the under side have a chance to dry.  You need to be careful when adding the water.  If you add too much it won't dry.  In this recipe less is better when it comes to the water. 

If there is any leftover in the spring, it can easily be turned into syrup for spring buildup by disolving it in water.

[blackforest beekeeper]

Blackforest,
We were supposed to switch to the metric system back in the 70s but our weak politicians were afraid to enforce the completion of the switch. I had to learn both systems as part of the preparations for the switch. Metric is much easier to use than what we use.
Jim

sawdustmaker!
On a daily basis, I guess it doesn`t matter much. When working with timber I often measure like: 56 cm and a fourth.... Probably some American influence on me there?
But as an engineer and halfway physicist I do favor the metric system.

2nd thoughts: I got an old LandRover and it`s a pain with the screws and stuff. Half is metric and then when You feel like winning the game, there comes english inches...

[blackforest beekeeper]

If you want to invert the sugar with acid yourself for fondant, i would rather tend to make the syrup first and then mix that with powdered sugar, to reduce HMF content.

I don't know, how much is powdered sugar for you?

[blackforest beekeeper]

If you want to invert the sugar with acid yourself for fondant, i would rather tend to make the syrup first and then mix that with powdered sugar, to reduce HMF content.

I don't know, how much is powdered sugar for you?

Is there an "edit"-button somewhere?

I thought about that. And - being really short on chemistry as a result of my spending a crucial high-school year in the US - I am grateful for Your comment.
I did think of making powdered sugar myself but did sell off a large flour-mill without trying. Powdered sugar is almost as much as the fondant, so....
Anyway: What would the recipe be?

[blackforest beekeeper]

Did you have a look at Geller, they habe quite good prices, even for Bio.

I know Geller quite well. He was almost up and about to move a truckload of bees to me for pine-honey, but cement-honey got in between. But as for feed, nowadays we are required to buy "Bioland", not just "bio".

[beepro]

"What would the recipe be?"

10 lbs. powdered sugar or as much as you want; 50% filter water and 50% organic apple cider vinegar together in a small spray bottle.

Put in a 1/4" layer of powder sugar in a 3" high baking pan then use the spray bottle to moist it.   You will see that
the powder sugar is wet when it change color, no longer a white powder form.   Continue to add one layer of
powder sugar and spray it wet.    Soon you will have a 3" layer of moist sugar brick in the pan.    Use a knife or a
pizza cutter to cube the moist sugar into 3"x3" rectangular sections.   You must divide them before heating them in the
oven.  If not they will form a harden cube as large as the baking pan.  If not pre-cut, once fully cure it is harder to break them into smaller section.

To cure the wet sugar:   Pre-heat the oven on medium heat.    Then put the moist sugar powder pan in the oven on low heat (warm setting.)   It is
advisable to turn on the stove fan to vent out the vinegar smell if you don't want your house to smell like vinegar.  Temporary though as the
vinegar smell will dissipate over time.   Never boil (too much heat) the powder sugar in the oven as this will burn it.   No good.  The duration to cure is 2-5 hours in the oven.  Leave it overnight to fully cure.

To make large sugar brick batches, I use as many different size baking pans as I can fit in the oven per batch.   Then after 2 hours when the sugar bricks are half-cure I take the pans out and break off the sugar brick into cubes.   They are not fully cure yet.   Then transfer these cubes in to my homemade small fridge incubator.   Inside the incubator I can adjust the temp. to 90F for a faster cure overnight.   This will free up the oven for another powder sugar batch on the same day.    In one day I can make a suit case of these sugar bricks.   

To make better improvement I would use a 3 gal. hand held pressure sprayer.  Once pressurized wetting the powder sugar will be much faster than using the small spray bottle.   If you have a big incubator then you can make these sugar bricks on multi-layer bakery trays.    There is more room for improvement on this
process.   But don't burn the sugar while it is in the oven!   This is a slow but proven method of making them.