The first week of January 2014 brought a forecast of record low temps for the time of year in our upstate area. With the coldest temps in 20-30 years being in the forecast, I was filled with worry for my bee colonies. My worse fear was for my marginal colonies, ones that might make it through a mild winter and thrive but will perish in extreme cold. These smaller clusters happen for various reasons - some maybe my fault - some maybe bee genetics or pests/disease issues.
Despite good fall prep, I am always concerned that clusters wont be able to reach food when it is needed. I hate making candy boards and the required rims/shims. My answer was to try to give the bees a scoop of sugar right on top of the cluster for emergency rations.
First I mixed pure cane sugar in a bowl with just enough warm water stirred in to make it start to stick together. I also added in a bit of Honey B Healthy and a small amount of honey.
On a "somewhat" mild day before the "polar vortex", I quickly opened each colony (not removing any frames and trying to minimize the time with the colony open. I found the cluster and placed a piece of newspaper on top of the cluster - dampened this with a spray of sugar water - dumped a clump of the candy mix on top and got the top box back on. The candy mixture was pliable and molded between the boxes not requiring a shim. I am convinced that this practice helped some of the colonies survive. This was an emergency situation and I hope helped some of the smaller clusters survive the record cold.
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