Mike wrote:

I have heard of beekeepers pouring granulated
sugar on the inner covers of hives as a late winter
feed.

I've done this for years, learned it from commercial beekeepers out in the
eastern plains, where winter is downright frigid.  We can't put liquid
syrup on our hives -- it'd freeze.

As to fondit/candy, syrup, granulated honey -- had an apiculture specialist
from overseas visit a bunch of our commercial operations, some feed syrup,
some feed back honey as needed in the spring.  He argued that they were all
doing it wrong, needed to be feeding fondit -- although how to mix, carry,
place 10# blocks in thousands of hives seemed to have fallen out of the
equation.

I put this in the common sense category.  Left to their own devices, honey
bees HAVE to survive on honey stores.  In Montana, where temperatures often
drop to 20 degrees F and may hit minus 40+, by spring, any honey in any
hive is by definition granulated.  Obviously, they are able to re-liquify.
There's lots of moisture in hives, it rains, snows and melts, etc.  If its
warm enough for them to move about, they'll take the dry sugar and store it
in the cells in a liquid state -- sometimes surprisingly fast.

Jerry

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