How to Make a Candy Board for Winter Beekeeping

Keep your honey bees thriving through winter with a beekeeping candy board.

When you’re drawing out your beehive plans, you’ll need to consider how you’ll take care of your bees in the winter.

Bees spend the spring and summer gathering pollen and nectar. They use the pollen and nectar to produce honey, which they store up for winter. To help your honey bees, you can plant flowers and plants to increase honey production.

But what if your bees don’t store up enough honey? Or you have a new colony?

You can get your struggling bees through the winter with a candy board.

What Is a Candy Board?

You can use a candy board, also known as a sugar board, as a last resort when your honey bees need winter feed.

Honey bees need plenty of honey to get through the cold, winter months. They have ample food sources during the warm months, but rely on their stores of honey in the winter.

When they don’t have enough honey stores, honey bees can starve to death.

A sugar board is a simple solution to keep your bees thriving until the weather warms up. Sugar boards consist of a frame, hardware cloth, cooked sugar candy, and an entrance hole for your honey bees.

The candy board feeder is installed on top of the beehive. 

Learn how to make a candy board for your bees with these steps from Blain’s Farm & Fleet.

How To Make a Candy Board

There are a few methods for making a sugar board. But one of the easiest and safest ways to make a sugar board is by using a no-cook method.

You won’t have to worry about getting burned by boiling sugar, or even burning the sugar itself.

1. Make the frame

First, you need to make the candy board frame. You’ll need to measure your beehive to make sure the frame fits. Measure the length and width of your beehive.

If you have pieces of scrap wood laying around, you can use those. The wood should be one to two inches tall.

Screw the four pieces of wood together to form the frame.

2. Drill an entrance hole

Once you’ve screwed the frame together, drill an entrance hole for your honey bees. The hole should be about 1/2″. So the bees can easily get in and out, but nothing else can get in.

Drill the hole toward the bottom of the board; not in the center. The top part of the board will be covered by the beehive lid.

3. Attach hardware cloth

Using strong fence staples, attach 1/2″ of hardware cloth to the inside of your frame. This is so the frame sits evenly and firmly on the beehive.

Give yourself an extra inch when you’re cutting the wire mesh. This will allow you to staple it to the inside of the frame.

4. Make the sugar mixture

Once you’ve assembled the frame, it’s time to mix the sugar. You can use this simple candy recipe from Southeastern Indiana Beekeepers Association.

All you need is 16 pounds of sugar, 3 cups of water, and a large container. You can also use white vinegar to combat mold growth.

To make the mixture, pour the sugar into the large container. We suggest using a large stock pot. And slowly pour the water in, a little at a time. You can mix the vinegar in with the water.

Stir the water into the sugar. Once completely mixed, you’ll be left with wet, lumpy sugar.

5. Spread out the sugar mixture

Lay out parchment paper or newspaper on the hardware cloth. Spread out the wet sugar syrup on the paper, making it even with the sides of the frame.

If you want, you can stop halfway and add a pollen patty. The pollen patty will give your bees a pollen source, if their pollen stores are low.

Once the frame is full, let it sit overnight, or until the wet sugar has become rock hard.

6. Install the candy board

Now you can install your sugar board. Remove the outer cover. Take out the inner cover from your beehive boxes, and replace it with the sugar board.

Put the sugar board in with the hardware cloth side facing down. Put the outer cover back on.

Now your bees will have a reliable food source for the winter!

For more tips and how-tos like this one, visit our Beekeeping Blog.