IdealApi Complete® Apitotal IBC 1400kg syrup

01 · HOW TO FEED IT

Neat for stores; watered down to stimulate

Nothing to dissolve and nothing to heat. For topping up stores it goes in undiluted, and the maker suggests about 500 g per colony every two or three days, matched to how fast the bees take it down.

If you prefer the sum in litres, knowing that a litre of water weighs a kilo: water (L) = kg of syrup × (74 ÷ target dry matter − 1). A 1:1 is 50 % dry matter, so that comes to 0.48 L per kilo — 672 L for the IBC, which leaves you 2,072 kg — and a 2:1 is 66.7 %, at 0.11 L per kilo. A stimulation feed sits between 30 and 50 % moisture, and that band runs exactly from 2:1 to 1:1.

The IBC is sold by weight, not by volume: it is 1,400 kg of thick syrup, appreciably less than 1,400 litres. This is the format for feeding a whole apiary without handling drums one at a time. One warning about diluting: thinned syrup does not keep the way the concentrate does, because more water means more risk of fermentation. Make up only what the colony will get through in a few days.

02 · THE COMPOSITION

Fructose in front, and no more water than needed

The maker declares 38-40 % fructose, glucose and invert sugars on a water base, at a dry matter of 73-75 %. It arrives inverted, that is, with the sucrose already split into the simple sugars a bee takes up without any prior work — the figure worth reading on any syrup's data sheet.

03 · WHAT SITS ON THE SUGAR

Vitamins, minerals and amino acids — and what this isn't

This is what separates this line from the other two. It adds B-group vitamins, minerals and three amino acids — tryptophan, methionine and lysine — along with polyphenols and tannins from plant extracts. And here we have to be explicit, because the maker's own literature goes further than a feed is allowed to go: this is a complementary feed, not a veterinary medicine. It neither prevents nor treats any disease of the colony, it does not stand in for hive health work, and no such role is claimed for it here. What it brings is energy and a load of micronutrients; pollen and hive health are their own jobs.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Which of the three IdealApi lines

All three come in several formats, and what separates them is what sits on top of the sugar: