Yip Costco very cheap - but free burst bags from supermarket sounds cheaper............................
Yip Costco very cheap - but free burst bags from supermarket sounds cheaper............................
Fondant prices are pretty competitive at the moment, with BFP Wholesale quoting me under a tenner per 12.5 kg block … beats making up all that syrup
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FS Had a look at BFP is there a recommended type of fondant, they have all sorts.
farmfoods are 59p
Bakers fondant. You can get it in Livingston, my boot has been just like FS's picture.
Gavin, like me, is going to make a million iced buns ...
You can read the catalogue number from the photo. It's an own brand, most of the other fondants BFP sell are more expensive. A bulk order - not a trivial 300 kg - will usually be deliverable, and for less still than I paid. It's dense stuff. Those 25 boxes were like having three fat blokes in the back seat ... and one fat bloke driving (must be all those iced buns).
Usually I feed syrup but am considering just giving blocks of fondant over a queen excluder for the winter feed. Has anyone had any problems feeding this way?
One thing to watch out for is the difficulty exposing the tops of the frames for an oxalic acid trickle. A framed, rigid QX should hold the fondant off the bars but even so I like to postpone adding fondant until after the December trickle. That also means you can get thymol into your autumn syrup feed.
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I've fed fondant only for the last 4+ years. It goes on in late August and is usually finished by late October. I then remove the "empties", prise away the QE, wrap them in DPM to avoid Woody Woodpecker and forget about them until mid-December. I add Apiguard at the same time as giving them the fondant.
On the very rare occasions they've not taken all the fondant down by mid/late autumn I either don't bother with OA for that colony, or risk disrupting them to peel off the QE (which by this time is fixed down pretty thoroughly). It's a 50::50 call, perhaps influenced by the mite drop in the weeks approaching mid-winter (and I only bother monitoring the colonies still with fondant). All other colonies get OA.
I can only remember losing two full colonies fed in this way - one to CBPV that was apparent before the end of summer and the other due to a blocked entrance. The former I should have shaken out or united, the latter was due to my own considerable stupidity and will not be repeated. This is of 6-10 colonies going into the winter each year.
So the short answer to busybeephilip is "No".
Thanks Fatshark, this sounds very encouraging. I use apilife Var but out of curiosity do you add the apigaurd on top, below or in the gap between the two half blocks.
Also, my fear would be fondant running down between the frames, has this ever happened ?
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