SUGAR BRICKS

[Bakersdozen]

That's what I did, river.  Quick check.
Our fall was so warm I think my hives ate a lot of their stores.  Tomorrow is going to be 50F.  It should be 38F.  That's hives that are not going to be clustered when it would be if temps were normal.  Well all were alive on MLK day.  We have almost another month before pollen sources are available here.

[riverbee]

our fall was warm too bakers, but i also had the best late blooms in a number of years here.  most of mine were heavy after the bloom quit and we went into cold weather. even though they were heavy (all but one) i still put the bricks on all, just insurance, and added another round early december i think?  they'll move around in 50 degree weather, and you would probably find them on the sugar if you peeked in.  i love these feeding rims/shims.  to me it seems the bees 'like' the extra cluster space with the sugar bricks in place.

[Bakersdozen]

i love these feeding rims/shims.  to me it seems the bees 'like' the extra cluster space with the sugar bricks in place.

I have shims on all my hives this year. I like the ventilation, access for the bees to take cleansing flights, and the ease of adding food in a pinch.
I think those stinkin' SHB like shims as well!    While I was slipping sugar bricks into the tops of my colonies I removed the telescoping lid of one hive to see 6-10 SHB that the bees had chase to the top.  They were froze to death or almost dead around the handle hole of the inner cover.  Smash! Smash!

[LazyBkpr]

Looking forward to getting back to Iowa to check on my bees and see if they need more sugar (I THINK)
    Excellent post as I am still getting questions about wintering bees and sugar cakes, even 1500 miles away from home.   Makes it easy to say...  GO HERE and do a search for Sugar Bricks!
   Hopefully some of those referrals will stay a while!

[riverbee]

thanks scott, this is a good thread on sugar bricks, lot's of good info.
safe travels, thanks for checking in!

bakers........
Smash! Smash!

i talked to jack, told me how many hives he had lost to those little buggers or found dead outs with shb in them.  i am grateful that we do not have this problem.

[riverbee]

i decided to get ahead of things this season so i started my sugar bricks this year so i have them when i need them and can dry them out if need be beyond the oven.

the recipe i use is in post #1 for 5 lbs of sugar at a time using a mix master.  the only thing i did different was use 20 ounce paper bowls to form the sugar bricks in and mash the sugar mix in tightly. the paper bowls are now drying out in the oven...........well, they are microwave safe......
as a former fire investigator, i was wondering how much heat would ignite a paper bowl full of sugar at 170 dF............
lol, i placed 6 of these bowls on a very large cookie sheet with aluminum foil down on the sheet that was cut long enough on all sides to fold up above the bowls.  not sure i am making sense? so surrounded the bowls so they don't burn or light on fire from the edges............

will take a pic........

[riverbee]

i am behind on posting pix for my sugar bricks (and many other things............. )
anyway these are the sugar bricks i mixed up from my last post in 20 ounce paper bowls.  these slide out of the bowl very easily, no cutting, no crumbling or breaking, no wax paper, and can quickly place in a hive. the heat from the oven at 170 as i did it, did not affect or start the bowls on fire or crisp them a burning brown edge. maybe with an older oven it might?   





i can fill them to the top, but didn't for the first round, just wanted to see how well these paper bowls worked.  they work great!

[yukonjeff]

I made sugar bricks last year and found the easiest way is to put dry sugar in a garbage bag and then use a spray bottle and moisten the sugar one spray at a time and mix the sugar in the bag. This works great, and don't add too much liquid at once.I made a few last night and they are dry this morning (no baking, no mess) I use a cap full of cider vinegar and water for liquid.
I use the biggest pie tins I can find so to cover the top bars as much as I can.

[riverbee]

jeff thanks for the pic!  that looks great!

in the past (i think pix on this thread) used a very large square baking sheet and just let them dry out, takes time and my 2 large baking sheets were out of service until the square bricks dried. it can be very humid here so a jump start on the drying process, even put them in a room with a dehumidifier. so this year i used the 20 ounce bowls, can dump about 6 of them in a hive.  jump started the drying process by putting them in the oven, probably didn't need to. i did additional sugar bricks in these bowls, just let them dry down, without putting them in the oven. what i like about this recipe is no messing around, mix it up, drop it in/pack it down and smooth it out in whatever, let it dry down and.......sugar bricks! if one needs bricks sooner, you will have to dry them down in the oven.

so another method added to our arsenal of winter feeding bees!

[yukonjeff]

Thanks
I have 26% humidity in the house now with my wood stove going. I am also able to flip the half dry bricks out of the tin onto cardboard and speeds up the drying time considerably. 

[Bakersdozen]

As I was making sugar bricks today, I thought this might be a good time to refresh this thread.  riverbee has posted a dandy recipe or two.  Others have chimed in with thoughts and pointers.  I usually don't worry about sugar bricks this early in the winter but we had a severe drought this summer and some of my hives are light.  I recommend doing a frequent "heft" test to see if your hives have enough winter stores.

[neillsayers]

I checked mine a few days ago while it was a little warm out. They were still taking syrup so I left the feeders on but I will pull them soon and put sugar cakes on for insurance- then hope for the best.

[riverbee]

"As I was making sugar bricks today, I thought this might be a good time to refresh this thread.  riverbee has posted a dandy recipe or two.  Others have chimed in with thoughts and pointers.  I usually don't worry about sugar bricks this early in the winter but we had a severe drought this summer and some of my hives are light.  I recommend doing a frequent "heft" test to see if your hives have enough winter stores."

a great time to refresh the thread! go to the first post and read on. sugar bricks are it and are easy! no fussin' with boiling sugar on the stove and this works to give your bees some emergency feed!

[Mikey N.C.]

Checked my hives yesterday.  I installed shims and 2 , 9" pie tin sugar cakes in each at the end of Nov.  We were going to have nights below freezing and 40's°f in the day. Knowing I'd be out of town for a couple of weeks.  Then it got unseasonably warm. Yesterday was
68-70°f , bees had eaten 2/3's of pies. I installed more cakes.

[Zweefer]

We had temps in the 40’s here (unseasonably warm - the girls were even taking cleansing flights!) so I popped my head in to check... glad I did! They were through my most of my emergency feed already. Not sure if it is warm weather, or they just funneled straight up bypassing most of the honey (didn’t go into the hive at all to investigate, just took top off to check feed) but I had to replace bricks already. Please don’t forget to check the hives periodically and replace as needed!


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[rober]

baker- I have that same mixer with the meat grinder & juicer attachments. I also have an earlier model that was my grandma's. I licked a lot of spoons when she fired that one up.
after leaving a mess on the stove I no longer do anything syrup, candy, or honey related in the kitchen. you can buy a paint or drywall mixer that fits in a drill & do your mixing in a bucket. I have some 2" deep baking pans I got at goodwill. Costco sells disposable aluminum pans in bundles of 10(?) & if your careful you can reuse them. I spray them lightly with bake release. when I overturn them on hive the brick falls right out.

[MudSongs]

I wrote a post a while back about how I make sugar bricks, which seems similar to the sugar bricks discussed in this thread.

https://mudsongs.org/feeding-my-bees-in-the-wintertime-with-sugar-bricks/

It's very simple:  mix 12 parts sugar with 1 part water.  That's it.  Then let it harden overnight in an oven with just the light on.  Sometimes it takes a second night to fully harden, or just left out on the counter.  Pollen supplement, essential oils, honey, etc can be added if desired, but it's essentially a 12 to 1 sugar to water ratio.  No cooking involved.  Nothing fancy.

I hate baking sugar or heating syrup for any reason.  I settled on this method of winter feeding because it's the quickest and easiest for me and seems to work just as well or better other methods I've tried (including the "Mountain Camp" method).

The post goes into all the details, but here's the video that quickly summarises the process:



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yukonjeff seems to deal with many of the same conditions I do on the east coast of Newfoundland.  I'm in the process of reading through most of his posts on this forum.  Lots of good stuff.  I've been out the beekeeping loop for the past 2 years because of an accident.  The information and discussions on this forum are serving well to bring me back into the fold.