# fondant for queen candy



## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

I am wondering if regular bee fondant is okay to use in queen cages ? Or is it too soft, making it too fast of a release for her ?


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

Should be fine I use everything from gummy bears to marshmallows what ever I have handy


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

Gummy bears ?? How do you keep the employees from eating them first  I will give the fondant a try and see if it has at least a 2 day release on the JZ BZ cages


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

I've used jzbz cages for the last 3 years. Toward the tail end of last year I experimented trying to make candy with honey and powdered sugar, with some success, but it didn't solidify as much as I had hoped.

Prior to that, I used mini marshmallows. Stick one fresh mini marshmallow into the candy tube of the jzbz cage gives about a 24 hour release. Old stale ones that have gone a bit hard are a problem, when you roll them small enough to get into the tube part of the cage, they dont always expand enough to stay seated, and I've had once where using an older stale one the bees didn't touch it, after 5 days queen was still in the cage. I've used two a couple of times when I wanted a release to take longer than 24 hours, cant say for sure it made a difference because I didn't open up to check. But I can say this, the only time I've had a problem using the mini marshmallow was when I used the old stale ones.

For this year, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try again making queen candy, or just buy a fresh bag of marshmallows.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

grozzie2 said:


> I've had once where using an older stale one the bees didn't touch it, after 5 days queen was still in the cage. I've used two a couple of times when I wanted a release to take longer than 24 hours, cant say for sure it made a difference because I didn't open up to check. But I can say this, the only time I've had a problem using the mini marshmallow was when I used the old stale ones.
> 
> For this year, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try again making queen candy, or just buy a fresh bag of marshmallows.


 I completely agree with this statement. Had 2 queens that I was introducing to 2 queenless nucs in January. Using stale marshmallows and in both cases, had to remove the stuff after 5 days to release the queen. Sometimes the 24 hrs isn't enough time though for the crew to get used to the new lady.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

We've been mixing honey and icing sugar. We make it very stiff
The honey keeps it from hardening


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

Ian said:


> We've been mixing honey and icing sugar. We make it very stiff
> The honey keeps it from hardening


Does it matter if it is liquid honey ? I have a bunch of older honey set aside from skimming pails that had wax near the top, it is all crystallized but good enough to feed it to bees.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

All I use is granulated 
We really press the icing sugar in


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

I will try that as well, thanks


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## Matt903 (Apr 8, 2013)

I have used that old timey candy called circus peanuts, you know, it looks like a large peanut? When it is fresh out of the bag, it will give a 3 day release every time. And it makes for a nice snack in the bee yard.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ian said:


> All I use is granulated
> We really press the icing sugar in


I'll try again with granulated. When I did it, used liquid honey and pressed in as much powdered sugar as I could get it to take. It was still very soft a month later.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

We do a roll test with it, get at least 2-3"
(Clay roll test is how we measure the amount of clay in our soil, to determine capacity)


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