How to make fondant for feeding bees in the winter

I have decided to feed my bees over the winter in case there is not enough honey for them in the hive.

Certainly the little nuc box won't have enough honey so they need to be fed so I will feed both hives and hope they survive the winter.

My plan is to make fondant and I found a bee fondant on Youtube from DC Honeybees that I will try.  Here is the recipe based on that video.

4 cups water in 8 quart pot
Karo syrup (1/4 cup)
juice of 1/2 lemon
8 lbs of sugar

Add karo syrup and lemon juice to the boiling water
Add sugar to pot
Stir and cook until dissolved
Until mixture is 238 degrees (using candy thermometer)
Cool to 180 degrees without touching it at all

Transfer to mixing bowl on Kitchen Aid and begin mixing using wire whisk, low for 15 minutes, then high.
Run it on and off for several hours until it cools down. until it becomes translucent and gooey with the consistency of heavy icing or taffy.

This accomplishes these things:
1) helps to cool it
2) incorporates air to change structure
3) crystals begin to form and mixing it helps keep them small...again, to obtain correct consistency

Add cooled mixture to plastic container to store mixture using one gallon plastic container and let it cool to a consistency so that it won't run out when tipped upside down.

Put the plastic container on top of the top bars of the hive, tip it upside down, with newspaper under it...so bees will eat through it and get to the mixture.  Check to see if it's gone after a few weeks.

The outcome of making fondant

Here we are on October 7th and I finally did make the fondant above and placed it into the hives earlier today.

After rewatching DC Honeybee's video again, I saw a note that said turning the plastic container upside down didn't work out very well so he just put some of the fondant onto a paper plate and put it on the top of the top bars so the bees could get to it easily.  So that's what I did too.

I wasn't sure if I should also put on the inner hive cover now since I also removed the top hive feeder today.  The fondant will replace the sugar water I've been feeding them in that top hive feeder.

So I put it on and will hope for the best!

My fondant seemed to come out as described.  It had the texture of a thick taffy.  The bees were all over it immediately.  I'll check it in a week to see how they are doing. I'm anxious to see how long the fondant will last.  I didn't even use one-quarter of it today.  I would think this quantity would last at least a week and hopefully more.  We'll see.