Lauri’s Sugar Block Recipe – Slightly Modified

This morning dawned sunny with the potential of a warm-ish day (47º as I write this).  While it was early and the temps were still in the mid 20s, I decided to take a quick peek and see if any of the nucs had bees on the top frames yet.

I can hear some of you now, “You opened your hives when it was in the 20s?”. Yup. I wanted to see where the bees were before it was warm enough for them to break cluster and use the top entrances. Based on the design of my quilt boxes, I can open a hive, look at the top frames and close it in less than 5 seconds. All I want to know is are there bees on top or not. I don’t linger. It’s in and out. Happily, of the 3 nucs I checked, only one had bees visible on the top frames. After taking data samples on the 2 full hives nearest the house, I decided to do the same and quickly peaked into the full hives. True to what the sensors told me, there were a few bees visible in one hive and none in the other. Using a cheap stethoscope, I found the largest hum coming from the center of each full hive stack.

The only issue was the top frames of the 1 nuc were completely covered with bees. Thinking ahead, I purposely did not process all of the honey last fall and stored 4 full honey supers in the”bee freezer” in the barn. I waited until it was a bit warmer, put 5 honey frames in a nuc box, pulled the quilt box off the hive – exposing the bees on the top frames – placed it on top of the new honey super I was adding and quickly placed both back on the nuc, thereby adding 5 frames of honey and keeping them fed. Total exposure time for the bees was less than 10 seconds.

But what would I have done if they didn’t produce excess honey last fall? My quilt boxes have a 1″ shim, an open space specifically designed for sugar blocks, patties, etc. built into each one. That makes it very easy to quickly tip the quilt box forward, place several sugar blocks on the top bars and lower the quilt box back into place. Again, this would take maybe 15 seconds as I would have to use the 4″ x5″ sugar block to gently “plow” some bees out of the way in order to place them on the top of the frames. When I use sugar blocks I usually place 2 in each hive. I like these as I find them easier to make than a candy board with less clean up in the spring.

Lauri’s Recipe

I found a great recipe for these on BeeSource.com that was created and posted by Lauri Miller, a very respected beekeeper located in Roy, Washington who often shares her results there with members. I greatly appreciate her allowing me to discuss it here. Click on the following link to be taken directly to her original post (with 23 pages of comments!).

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?290641-My-recipe-method-for-sugar-blocks&highlight=Laurie+sugar+blocks

Lots of folks liked her recipe so I modified quantities slightly for my needs as her recipe makes 25 lbs. Mine makes 8. I also made a couple of ingredient changes based on what I have on hand and the fact I do not wish to feed pollen to the hives this early (which I believe she may also mention…). Please know this is entirely her work that I have only slightly modified. So you can look at Lauri’s to see her excellent pictures and technique or use my variation of her recipe below. MANY thanks to her for posting how to do this! Following her instructions with my slight amendments, I successfully fed my hives last winter without any issues. Thanks, Lauri! You rock! If you are on FaceBook, her page is:

https://www.facebook.com/Miller-Comp…6954971040510/

My Variation

8# cane sugar
10.5 oz Braggs Organic Apple Cider
2/3- 3/4 T citric acid (Found in your canning dept)
3/4 tsp Honey-B-Healthy                                                                                                                    1/2 tsp Vitamins-B-Healthy

– Mix sugar and citric acid together in a five gallon bucket.

– Mix Braggs and the HBH and VBH together in a separate container and mix into sugar with a large drill and paint paddle mixer.

– Mixture will feel very soft, but not wet or sticky.

– Using 1 full size and 1 smaller cookie sheet, I place the mixture on the cookie sheets and  roll it out so it is about 5/8″ thick. Use any size pan you want, but be sure your bricks are no taller than your shim under your inner cover!

– Cut the blocks out now as you will not be able to do so once it hardens. I make mine  about 4″x 5″rectangles so they will fit into nucs.

– Place sheets in a 130º oven for about 3 hours or until hard.

When finished, I let mine sit for a couple of days in our garage to dissipate the strong vinegar odor. Our house definitely smells like vinegar while these are in the oven drying. It’s not bad, it just does…When they are aired out, I place the blocks in a covered container so they are ready for use and protected from mice, etc.

As mentioned, when needed, I feed 2 at a time to start and go from there. I do tend to wait until the bees are at the top as I do not want to entice them to bypass honey to get to these. Not completely sure they will, but knowing how bees like to remove anything foreign from their hives, I prefer to wait until they need it for food.

Works for me. I hope it works for you, too.