Giving Fondant
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Fondant contains only about 10 percent water, whereas feeding syrup contains about 27.5 percent.
Fondant contains only about 10 percent water, whereas feeding syrup contains about 27.5 percent. Because it is so dry, the bees need additional water to take it up. This is exactly what determines when it fits and when it does not.
Its place is with nucleus colonies and early feeding. A nucleus takes fondant up slowly and is thereby supplied over a longer period, and the risk of robbing stays low, because fondant attracts far less attention than liquid feed. For a nucleus, liquid feed is only added two to three weeks after forming it. The Bavarian advisory service holds nothing of stimulative feeding, meaning feed given purely to stimulate brood activity: if a colony has enough stores, it develops on its own. Emergency feeding is something different from stimulative feeding.
For winter feeding from September and for emergency feeding, the institutes explicitly recommend liquid feed. Fondant costs the bees too much energy, and in early spring, without flight activity, water for dissolving it is lacking. Also important: the fondant must not dry out. If a hard outer crust forms, the bees can barely reach it anymore; that is why it stays in its wrapping and is only opened a little from underneath.