crystalized honey for winter / spring feed

[Dr. B in Wisconsin]

Hello everyone
I have a few questions, has anyone ever done this. I have lots of extra honey and usually just give it away to friends. This year my bees died for the first time, they ran out of stores in the upper deep, the lower deep was full of honey, it was very cold here in Wisconsin and the bees were out a few weeks ago, I should have looked, but it was so cold here, but last year they came through the winter in great shape and hardly ate any of the stores. It was a surprise when it warmed up into the 40's and i did not see any bees I knew it was bad, a lonely feeling when nothing was flying. So after a little background what would you all think of opening the top towards the end of winter an putting some crystalized honey on the top frames / between frames on the top, I know people put dry sugar in and I did do that once and people put the hard candy in also. I have extra honey so why not use it???? Taking this idea a little farther I have noticed that just before winter some of the upper frames had small empty spots on the edges why not use a putty knife and fill in the empty spots at least on the top box with crystalized honey???? I little long winded here what do you all think.

[greenbtree]

Well. even crystalized honey seems to flow, especially when exposed to moisture.  I just did a quick hive inspection today, lost some more hives, I noticed that the ones I lost had no honey left AT ALL, just sugar I put on Mountain Camp style.  Many of my hives went into winter light, I tried to feed them up, but had a real robbing problem last year (either some big feral hives out there, or another keep that wasn't feeding, is my guess) so they were trying to get through a lot of the winter on just sugar.  I'm coming to the conclusion that they can only go so long that way.  Anyway, I took some tinfoil pie pans and filled them with some mostly crystalized honey I had from the year before, then put a good layer of wood shavings on top and patted them down.  Since I already had spacers on the hives for dry sugar, I just popped them in where the sugar had already been eaten by the bees.  I figure the shavings will keep the honey from drowning the bees.  I will report on how it worked out.

JC

[Dr. B in Wisconsin]

Any other opinions out there?

[Michael Bush]

Crystallized honey does not stay solid especially when you mash or stir it.  You can feed it in a frame feeder.  You can put it in a fed ex envelope and put a couple of slits in the side and put it next to the cluster.  If I were putting it on top, I would only do a small amount and put it on paper.

[2Sox]

I cut up the crystallized honey, put it into plastic take-out containers on top of my inner cover.  I put on a 4" ventilated super and my outer cover on top.  The eat it up fast.  This is how I feed back the honey from my cut outs.  Fast and easy.