Bee Sugar Syrup Calculator (1:1, 2:1 & Fondant)

How it works

ratios are by WEIGHT (1 L water = 1 kg) · syrup litres ≈ (sugar + water) ÷ density (1:1 ≈ 1.23, 2:1 ≈ 1.32 kg/L) · stores ≈ syrup volume × density × sugar fraction ÷ 0.82 · feedings = litres ÷ (hives × litres per feeding)

Bees turn sugar syrup into stores the way they turn nectar into honey — by evaporating water and inverting the sucrose — so the concentration a beekeeper mixes decides whether the colony reads it as a flow to raise brood on or as food to pack away: thin syrup imitates spring nectar and stimulates laying, thick two-to-one syrup goes straight into the comb with little work and is what autumn feeding uses. Because a kilogram of sugar takes up volume when dissolved, a litre of syrup weighs more than a kilogram and the recipe yields more litres than water added, and the stores it becomes are lighter still once dried to honey moisture. Below about ten degrees the bees cannot evaporate syrup at all, which is why winter rescue feeding uses solid fondant.

Worked example

Twenty litres of 2:1 autumn syrup need 20 ÷ 1.14 ≈ 17.6 kg of sugar dissolved in 8.8 L of water, about $21 of sugar. Split across four hives that is 5 L each — two or three feedings of 2 L — and adds roughly 5.4 kg of capped stores per hive. The same sugar would make about 19 kg of winter fondant.

Frequently asked questions