Sticky mess

So Thursday night on the way home I stopped by a supermarket and bought 4kg sugar. Patrick had advised to make a strong syrup to build up the colony's strength, so that meant dissolving the 4kg in 2l of water. I checked which tupperware would take 2l and then put the water on the hob to heat.
After adding the first kilo, I realised the water level was rising (yes, I know: should have thought of that beforehand). That meant the saucepan I was using would not be able to take all 4kg of sugar. It also meant that the tupperware bowl I had selected (with a spout - I was thinking about some things) would not be sufficient.
All no problem. I got out a larger saucepan and poured the solution into it. I then happily added the remaining three kilos, slowly, watching the sugar clump into cloud-like structures reminiscent of candy-floss. I never let the water boil, but kept it hot, just below simmering. Stirring it all in took about half an hour max. So I had a saucepan full of syrup.

A pot full of syrup - with the saving bottles

But how to get it to school? The roads between my house and school are curvy and potholed. No plastic bowl I have would be able to take that kind of a ride with the lid staying on. So, at nine at night I drove back to the supermarket, bought three 1.5l sturdy bottles of Coke, tipped the contents down the loo and washed the bottles out.
The next day I used a ladle, jug and funnel to pour the syrup into the bottles. The whole operation actually went rather smoothly and I didn't have a sticky mess in the kitchen.

The bees at the watering hole, so to speak

The bees loved the syrup and started drinking it straight away. In one hive (moon) I trickled a bit into the hive to animate the bees to look for the source, but in the star hive a bee was already in the feeder and I trusted it to relay the message of its find, which it obviously did.

One thing I realised when going out to feed the bees is to make sure that I carry out all work to be done during breaks when the children are around. When I walked out to the hives, I soon had a little group of pupils following me and asking me what I was doing. I explained a bit about the syrup and why we feed the new colony. They watched from a safe distance as I poured syrup into the feeders and followed me all the way back to the main school building. Visible bee duties is a good way of keeping interest in the hives up!