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Beehives
- Complete beehive
- Accessories
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Nuc hives
- Nucs by format
- With bees & mating
- Spare parts
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Bee equipment
- For the apiary
- For the beekeeper
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Clothing
- Clothing Accessories
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Beeswax
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Pure beeswax
- Beeswax and foundation
- Beeswax foundations
- Melting and rolling beewax
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Pure beeswax
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Bee feed
- Accessories and source materials
- Utensils
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Bee health
- Varroa Treatments
- Diseases control
- Nutraceuticals
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Extraction and bottling
- Before extraction
- Honey extraction
- After extraction
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Bee pollen
- Harvest
- Indicted
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Honey packaging
- Flasks per utility
- Flasks by size
- Other packaging
Apipasta with vitamins 15kg
Beecomplet® Spring 14Kg
Beekeeper suit with round veil
Oxalic acid 1kg
Beeswax Foundation 5kg
Fresh royal jelly 20g
Classic honey jar 1kg comb-lines TO77 - Pack of 16 units
Promotor L Apis 1 litre
Maintenance feed
Candy, pastes and fondant for wintering: Apifonda, Apipasta, Ambrosia, energy candy and candy board booster. From €1.36 for a single kilo up to a full pallet.
When and how to use maintenance feeding
Maintenance feeding isn't about “stimulating just to stimulate”, but about helping the colony meet its needs when not enough nectar is coming in: autumn, winter, droughts or long gaps in flowering. At those times, I usually prefer a solid paste or candy (fondant) over a liquid syrup, especially if it's cold or the colony has little activity. Solid feed provides energy in a more stable way, creates less moisture to manage inside the hive and lets the bees consume it little by little, as long as it's well placed and the colony is strong enough to reach it.
My advice is to choose the paste according to the real state of the hive, not just the price. For pure maintenance, I'd prioritize a stable feed, with low moisture, fine texture, good palatability and HMF control. It's also important to place it close to the cluster, because in the cold a weak colony can starve even with feed just a few frames away. If on top of that there's a shortage of pollen or you want to prepare the wintering better, an enriched paste or one with a moderate protein content can make sense, but I wouldn't use it as a rule in every hive. First you have to look at stores, population, brood, available pollen and the time of year. Good maintenance feeding doesn't replace good management, but it can make the difference between a hive that only just makes it and a colony that goes into the next season strong.
Maintenance feed
Maintenance feed has a different aim from stimulation feed: to get the colony to spring, not to make it raise brood now. That is why it is paste and not syrup.
Why paste and not syrup
In cold weather bees cannot dehydrate syrup — they have neither the temperature nor the ventilation to evaporate water — and liquid syrup in midwinter adds moisture to the hive, which is exactly what you want to avoid. Paste is consumed as it is, with no dehydration work.
How to place it
The bag goes on top of the frames, in contact with the cluster, opened underneath. If you put it far away, in the cold the bees cannot reach it: they starve with food ten centimetres away. And do not open the hive more than strictly necessary.
When
At the close of wintering, if lifting the hive from behind tells you it is light. And at the end of winter, which is when stores really run out: February and March kill more colonies than December.
Formats
The single bag (€1.36-4.67) is for the beekeeper with few hives or for topping up. The 12.5 kg box (€21.95) and the pallet come out far cheaper per kilo if you have a whole apiary to close down.
Syrup and stimulation are in stimulation feed; feeders in feeders.