HIVE ALIVE Fondant Bee Food Supplement - with Vitamins & Amino Acids - Natural Feed Enhancer Improves Colony Health, Population & Honey Production - Ideal Winter, Spring Feed to Lower Mortality-6Pack

I'd been using the Hive Alive liquid supplement for a year when they came out with the fondant and I figured I'd try it out for winter feeding instead of making my own candy boards last winter. The bees absolutely love this fondant, almost more than they like their own honey supplies, I think. I was a little nervous about and still don't love the plastic bag - Hive Alive recommends just cutting a slit in the bag and putting it facedown on the top bars - but I cut a fairly large rectangular hole out of the bag to make it easier for the bees to access and to exit. I also used a screened feeder top that I made with a couple of shims and some wide chicken wire to keep the fondant off the top bars themselves. They're the feeders I used when making my own fondant, so I just put the Hive Alive fondant (and a couple of Hive Alive pollen patties) on those.When you open your hive and you find a nearly empty plastic bag full of bees, it can be a little daunting to empty! On warmer days last winter, I would open the hives quickly to check their food supplies and as they ate thru the fondant, I would cut away more of the plastic bag. But that's my only issue with it, and I don't know if there's any way to improve it, other than just removing the plastic bag entirely, which seems difficult and more trouble than it's worth. The bees don't seem to mind and it may be that the plastic bag helps keep some heat in during winter months.As to the bee health claims that Hive Alive makes, I can say that I've definitely seen an improvement in how the bees look - they're glossy and chunky coming out of winter and I've had more success getting hives to survive the winter. It's hard to attribute this to one supplement obviously, bc there are about a million different factors that can cause a hive to die or thrive, but I do think it helps with overall bee health. You will still need to do mite mitigation and good winter prep and practice good hive care, of course. But I do think it's worth it to use this supplement.

I am a beginner bee keeper and I feel this product may have saved one of my two hives. I ordered it on a Friday and received it on the following Monday.Like a lot of beginners I started with 2 hives and one is stronger than the other. The stronger hive has lots of food stores and the weaker one ran out of food in late January. I placed one fondant patty in each hive and three weeks later the weaker hive had consumed most of its fondant while the stronger hive hadn’t even touched it because it still has food so I put the fondant from that hive to the weaker hive so they still have some food. I ordered 6 more Pattie’s and it arrived very quickly witch is good since I have to keep an eye on the weaker colony. I should mention that after the first fondant patty was consumed the weaker hive looked to be in better shape with better numbers and more active bees but since the weather in nj. right now is still very cold at night and we even have chances of snow still even with days that can reach into the mid 60’s which can have foragers flying to gather what pollen can be found this time of year and then at at night struggling to keep the colony warm if they don’t have enough high energy food.

I just cut a hole as per directions on bag, put on top of inner cover. The girls eat it up.

Excellent product! Fast turnaround

Easy to use

Great product wish there was another seller. They are unorganized and slow. Count on at least 6 weeks.

My bees love this product

Feeding new hive. Bees love it.