Apimix IBC 1200kg syrup with vitamins for bees

01 · DENSITY

It arrives ready to stimulate, with no water added

Ratios go by weight: a 2:1 is two kilos of sugar to a litre of water, that is 66.7 % dry matter. Apimix declares 66.5 % — 66 °Brix — so it leaves the factory at that point and is poured straight into the feeder. A stimulation feed sits between 30 and 50 % moisture, and this one falls inside that band at 33.5 %.

If you still want it lighter: water (L) = kg of syrup × (66.5 ÷ target dry matter − 1), which for a 1:1 comes to 0.33 L per kilo. For winter stores this is not the syrup: a thick one fed neat suits better, because the bees drive off less water before they cap it.

02 · BEYOND THE SUGAR

The vitamins are not decoration: they go with the season

Stimulating means the colony starts rearing brood, and rearing brood is exactly when it leans hardest on pollen. This syrup was formulated as the liquid stimulation feed of the range, so it carries added B-complex — nicotinamide 30.8 mg/kg, D-panthenol 14.2, B2 4.7, inositol 4.7, B1 3.3, B6 2.1 and biotin 1.9 — the group of vitamins a bee normally takes from pollen.

And with them seventeen declared amino acids, among them nine of the ten a bee cannot make for itself and has to take in through its diet — tryptophan is the one missing. That said, the analysis itself declares 0 g of crude protein: this goes alongside a protein feed, it does not replace one.

03 · KEEPING

Why such a fluid syrup lasts 18 months

At 33.5 % moisture a syrup would be on the edge of fermenting. This one is not, because it carries potassium sorbate (E-202) at 0.10 % maximum, a preservative authorised in animal feed. That is why the best-before is 18 months from production, kept cool, dry and out of the sun.

The other figure worth checking in any syrup is HMF, which climbs with heat and time in store: here it is declared below 20 ppm. And the profile is fully inverted — fructose 52 % and dextrose 48 % on dry matter, with no residual sucrose — so the bee has nothing left to split, and that high fructose fraction is what resists crystallising.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

Do not feed with honey supers on the hive or during a flow: the syrup can end up stored in the combs and adulterate the crop. It is a feed, not a treatment: it does not act on any disease of the colony and does not replace hive health management.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The IBC is sold by weight: 1,200 kg, which at a density of 1.324 g/cc works out at roughly 906 litres. It can be pumped straight to the feeder or decanted into smaller containers.