Feeding bees: syrup, fondant and winter stores (UK)

Feeding bees in the UK: NBU thick and thin syrup recipes, the 20 kg winter target, fondant, pollen substitutes, feeders, HMF risks and honey and organic rules.

Feeding bees means making up what a colony cannot gather for itself: sugar, as syrup or fondant, when its stores run short, and occasionally protein when pollen is missing. In the UK the job that matters most is autumn feeding. Once the last honey is off and varroa treatment is on, the National Bee Unit (NBU) wants each colony to go into winter with about 20 kg of stores, and any shortfall is made up with thick syrup, ideally in September. Spring feeding, fondant and pollen substitutes are for specific situations, not routine.

When should you feed bees?

A well-sited colony that has been left enough honey feeds itself. Feeding is a response to a shortage you have measured, by hefting, weighing or reading the combs, not a habit. There are two different jobs:

Feeding for stores: large volumes of thick syrup given quickly, so the bees store it and cap it before the cold.
Stimulative or maintenance feeding: small amounts of thin syrup, given little and often, which imitate a light nectar flow and keep the queen laying or the bees drawing comb.

Thin syrup trickled into a colony in late August is turned into brood rather than stores. The NBU’s advice in BBKA News is blunt: earlier feeding tends to be converted into brood, so unless there is a risk of starvation, wait until September.

The feeding year in the UK

The dates below suit lowland southern England. In Scotland, Wales’s uplands and northern England, spring arrives two to four weeks later and autumn closes earlier, so the window for syrup is shorter. For everything else that happens in those months, see the beekeeping calendar.

Month	Typical situation	What to give	Purpose
January to February	Hive feels light when hefted	Fondant over the cluster	Emergency
March to April	Fewer than 4 to 5 combs of stores; brood expanding	Fondant, then thin syrup in a contact feeder once bees fly	Rescue, then maintenance
March to April	Cold, wet spell with no pollen coming in	Pollen substitute or a pollen frame from a healthy colony	Protein
May	Oil seed rape, fruit blossom, hawthorn; supers on	Nothing for established colonies	None
May to July	Swarms, nuclei and splits drawing comb	Thin syrup, without supers	Maintenance
June	The June gap, especially after swarming or splitting	Check stores; thin syrup if short	Avoid starvation
August	Honey off, varroa treatment on	Usually nothing yet	Varroa first
September	Shortfall against the 20 kg target	Thick syrup, a few large feeds	Stores
October	Ivy flowering; colonies still light	Finish syrup in mild weather	Catch-up
November to December	Cluster formed	Fondant only if light	Emergency

The June gap is real, not folklore. A University of Bristol study of farmland in south-west England, published in 2019, found nectar supply peaking in May and July with a dip in June between them, and low supply in March and in August and September. A colony that swarmed in May, or a split made from it, can be close to empty in June even if the supers were heavy a month earlier.

Ivy is the opposite case. Garbuzov and Ratnieks at the University of Sussex found that ivy made up about 89% of the pollen loads collected by honey bees in autumn, and that its nectar is rich, at about 49% sugar. In a mild autumn colonies near ivy can add useful weight in October, but ivy is no reason to skip a September feed for a light hive: it fails in cold, wet weather and its honey sets hard in the comb.

When not to feed

With supers on: syrup stored in the supers ends up in your honey. Under the Honey (England) Regulations 2015 and their equivalents, honey sold as honey must have no food ingredient added.
During a flow: it is pointless and clogs the brood nest with stores.
In cold weather: the NBU states that bees cannot process syrup when it is too cold, and a cold feeder of liquid simply sits above the cluster.
To a queenless, drone-laying or seriously diseased colony: syrup will not save it. Unite it or deal with the cause first.

How much honey does a colony need for winter?

The NBU’s figures are the UK reference. An average colony needs 18 to 22 kg of stores to get through the winter, and large colonies with prolific queens may need more. Its winter preparation fact sheet sets a working target of about 20 kg in autumn, with supplementary feeding for any colony below it. In spring, a colony should still have at least four to five combs of stores, about 9 kg, in March and April. The NBU article in BBKA News adds a historical note: the old British black bee needed about 10 kg to winter; today’s larger, more prolific colonies need roughly twice that.

Converting combs into kilograms

Measure	Approximate honey content	Source
Full super	at least 12 kg	NBU
Full British Standard brood frame (National)	about 2.3 kg	NBU
Full super frame (National shallow)	about 1.2 kg	NBU
Full Commercial or Langstroth brood frame	up to 3 kg	NBU
Autumn target per colony	about 20 kg	NBU
Spring minimum (March to April)	4 to 5 combs, about 9 kg	NBU

On a National hive wintered on a single brood box, a full super left on top plus three or four full brood frames of honey reaches the target. A colony on a 14x12 or Commercial box carries more honey per frame, so count frames, not boxes.

Checking stores without opening the hive

Read the combs at the last full inspection after the harvest. Estimate how much of each frame is capped honey and convert with the table.
Heft the hive. Lift one side by a few centimetres, then the other: stores are not always spread evenly. The NBU suggests hefting every other week through the winter, on both sides, and treats the weight at the end of autumn as the level to maintain.
Weigh it. A spring balance or luggage scale under each side in turn, added together, gives a figure you can compare year to year. Subtract the weight of your own empty hive with drawn comb, measured once.

Stores run out in spring, not December: once brood rearing restarts, consumption rises sharply, hence the NBU’s 9 kg minimum for March and April.

How do you make sugar syrup for bees?

The NBU’s two recipes are given by weight of sugar and volume of water:

Thick syrup: 1 kg of white granulated sugar to 630 ml of water, the old measure of 2 lb of sugar to 1 pint. Use it for autumn feeding.
Thin syrup: 1 kg of white granulated sugar to 1,260 ml of warm water, or 2 lb to 2 pints. The NBU uses it for spring and emergency feeding; it also suits swarms and nuclei drawing comb.

These are not the “2:1” and “1:1” of American guides: by weight, the NBU’s thick syrup is about 61% sugar and its thin syrup about 44%.

Syrup	Sugar	Water	Sugar content by weight	Approximate volume made	Use
NBU thick	1 kg	630 ml	about 61%	about 1.25 litres	Autumn stores
NBU thin	1 kg	1,260 ml	about 44%	about 1.9 litres	Spring, swarms, nuclei
Ready-made invert syrup (for example Ambrosia)	ready to use	none	about 73% feed value	not applicable	Autumn stores

Volumes are approximate, because dissolved sugar adds about 0.6 litres per kilogram. In practice, a litre of NBU thick syrup carries about 0.8 kg of sugar, and a litre of thin syrup about 0.5 kg. Our sugar syrup calculator does the sums for any number of hives, in kilos and litres or pounds and pints.

Step by step: 10 kg of thick syrup sugar

Weigh 10 kg of white granulated sugar. The NBU says cane or beet makes no difference.
Warm 6.3 litres of water. Hot tap water or a kettle is fine; the sugar dissolves faster in warm water.
Stir in the sugar gradually until it has completely dissolved. A paint mixer on a drill saves time in a large bucket.
Do not boil it. The NBU is explicit, and the reason is explained below.
Let it cool to lukewarm before it goes on the hive.
Use it within days. Thin syrup in particular ferments quickly in warm weather. If you must store syrup, the NBU’s mould-prevention method is to fill a 100 ml bottle one-third with thymol crystals, top it up with surgical spirit, and add 2.5 ml of that solution to 4.5 litres of syrup. The NBU stresses that thymol in syrup is not an authorised varroa treatment.

That batch gives about 12.5 litres of syrup. Reduced to honey strength, 10 kg of sugar could in theory make about 12 kg of stores, but the bees burn some of it processing the syrup, so plan on 1 kg of sugar for each kilogram of shortfall.

Use only white granulated or caster sugar. The NBU warns against brown and raw sugars, which contain impurities and can cause dysentery in bees confined to the hive. Do not add vinegar, lemon juice or cream of tartar either: acidifying and heating sugar is exactly how hydroxymethylfurfural forms.

Ready-made syrup: is it worth the money?

Most UK suppliers sell invert or part-invert syrups in 12.5 kg or 14 kg jerry cans. Ambrosia, made by Nordzucker from beet sugar, contains a mix of sucrose, glucose and fructose and has a stated feed value of about 72.7%, so it is ready to use and stays liquid. In October 2026 a UK supplier listed a 12.5 kg jerry can of Ambrosia syrup at £26.40 to £31.40. That can holds roughly 9 kg of sugar, so you pay about £2.90 to £3.45 per kilogram of sugar, several times the price of granulated sugar bought by the bag.

What you buy is convenience: no mixing, no crystallisation and less water to evaporate. For a few hives, homemade thick syrup does the job.

Why should you never boil syrup or feed the wrong sugars?

HMF: the toxin you make in the kitchen

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) forms when sugars, especially fructose, are heated, acidified or stored warm for a long time. In 2022 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a full risk assessment of HMF in bee feed. It set a reference point of 1.16 µg of HMF per bee per day, equivalent to about 95 mg of HMF per kg of feed for workers and 91 mg/kg for larvae over a 20-day exposure. For the longer exposures of winter bees, the equivalent concentrations fall to 49 mg/kg over 90 days and 15 mg/kg over 180 days, though EFSA flags greater uncertainty for those figures.

The levels EFSA found in the literature show where the risk lies:

up to 475 mg/kg in one invert syrup;
57 mg/kg in a commercial high-fructose corn syrup;
up to about 915 mg/kg in one candy (fondant) product;
about 6,000 to 14,000 mg/kg in homemade syrup boiled for 30 to 40 minutes at pH 2.

Michigan State University’s apiculture lab uses a stricter rule of thumb, considering HMF above 30 ppm toxic to honey bees. The practical message is the same: never boil syrup, never acidify it, store bought syrup and fondant somewhere cool and out of the sun, and do not use last year’s leftover feed for winter stores, which the colony will live on for months.

Sugars bees cannot digest

Bees handle sucrose, glucose and fructose well. According to Michigan State University, they cannot digest rhamnose, xylose, arabinose, galactose, mannose, lactose, raffinose, melibiose or stachyose, and most of these are also toxic to them. That rules out dairy products, molasses, sweets and flavoured syrups. It also explains why soya-based protein feeds need care, since soya contains raffinose and stachyose.

Autumn feeding step by step

Autumn feeding comes in a fixed order in the UK: honey off, varroa treatment on, then feed. The NBU puts varroa treatment normally in early to mid-August, because mite numbers peak in late summer just as the long-lived winter bees are being reared. Colonies taken to the heather in August come back later and are treated later, which leaves less time to feed. The details are in our guide to varroa mites.

Assess every colony after the harvest: stores, brood, strength and queen. A small colony that cannot cover the frames is better united with another than fed.
Work out the shortfall. Target 20 kg, estimated stores 8 kg: the colony is 12 kg short, which means about 12 kg of sugar made into thick syrup, roughly 15 litres.
Check the varroa treatment label. The NBU asks you to read varroacide labels before feeding at the same time, and its BBKA News article warns that feeding during some treatments, particularly those based on essential oils, can increase robbing.
Reduce entrances to a single bee space or a small block before the first feed.
Feed in the late evening, after flying has stopped, and feed every colony in the apiary on the same evening so none is singled out by robbers.
Give large feeds. Two or three fills of a rapid feeder holding up to 10 litres, a few days apart, store far better than dribbles of thin syrup.
Spill nothing. A puddle of syrup on the floor or a leaking feeder sets off robbing by bees and wasps within minutes, and in areas where the yellow-legged hornet has been reported it draws hornets to the apiary too.
Check two to three weeks later: syrup taken down, stores capped, weight on target. In most of the UK, aim to finish by early October.
Stop when the cold sets in. The NBU says sugar syrup should not be fed in winter. If a colony is still short at the end of October, give fondant instead.

Do not leave syrup on the hive into November: the NBU notes that syrup the bees do not take down quickly can ferment, and mould forms on the sides of the feeder.

When and how should you use fondant?

Fondant is a stiff paste of very fine sugar crystals in a syrup of sucrose, glucose and fructose. It carries almost no water, does not run and can sit right above the cluster. The NBU recommends it for winter and particularly cold weather: bees take it slowly and it does not excite the colony as syrup does, which also limits robbing. Its BBKA News article notes that bees need water, usually from condensation in the hive, to use it, and advises buying commercial fondant rather than making your own, since homemade candy varies in quality.

Use fondant in four cases:

a hive that is still light at the end of October or feels light when hefted in winter;
late winter and early spring, when brood rearing starts eating through stores and it is too cold for syrup;
packages, mini-nuclei and queen introduction cages, where the NBU notes that candy is used;
nuclei, where liquid feed risks drowning and robbing.

To put it on:

Choose a calm, mild day and keep the hive open for as short a time as possible.
Cut a hole or a cross in the wrapping and place the block, cut side down, over the crown board feed hole or directly on the top bars above the cluster.
Add an eke or an empty super around it if needed, replace the insulation and the roof.
Check through the feed hole on warm days every two to three weeks in winter, as the NBU suggests, and add more before the block is gone. Isolation starvation, where the cluster cannot move sideways to its stores, kills colonies with honey still in the hive.

A 12.5 kg box of Ambrosia fondant, sold as five 2.5 kg packs, was listed at £33 to £38 by a UK supplier in October 2026. One 2.5 kg pack is roughly one full National brood frame of honey. That is the limit of fondant: it is an emergency ration. A colony 10 kg short in October will not be put right with one block, which is why the September syrup feed matters. To work out how many packs to buy, or the sugar and water for a homemade batch, use our fondant calculator.

Remove any fondant left on the hive before the first super goes on in spring, so it cannot be carried up into the honey.

Does spring feeding help colonies build up?

Spring feeding means giving small amounts of thin syrup to speed up build-up before an early flow, for queen rearing, or to tide colonies over cold spells. The evidence from British trials is mixed, and it depends on colony size and weather.

The best-known trial is British. In spring 1948, Eva Crane organised 131 pairs of matched colonies kept by 86 beekeepers in 33 English counties, with one colony of each pair fed syrup of 1 lb sugar to 1 pint water from early March until the white horse chestnut flowered, and the other left unfed. On average the fed colonies had 1.03 more frames of bees and 0.89 more frames of brood, for an average of 7.4 lb of sugar. The gain was concentrated in small colonies: those of 8 frames or fewer gained about 36% more bees and 55% more brood, while colonies over 14 frames showed no significant gain. Colonies whose water source was 50 yards or more away gained clearly; those with water close by did not, which led Crane to suggest that the water in the syrup may matter as much as the sugar.

A review by the University of Edinburgh’s Bee Group is more cautious. It cites Free and Spencer-Booth, who found that syrup increased brood rearing in a year with bad weather but had no effect in a good year, and Butler, who found that dilute syrup through March and April did not change brood rearing while concentrated syrup significantly reduced it. Its advice is to feed in spring only when daily temperatures rise regularly above 10°C, little and often, and to accept that feeding is usually unnecessary in a good spring or for a colony with plenty of winter stores.

The NBU agrees: thin syrup to encourage brood rearing is pointless if the colony already has enough stores.

If you do feed in spring:

Feed only a healthy colony with a laying queen and pollen coming in. Sugar without pollen does not make brood.
Check the stores first. A colony with four or five combs of honey does not need syrup.
Use thin syrup in a contact feeder, which the NBU recommends for spring because the bees can reach it in cool weather.
Do not stop abruptly if the colony has expanded its brood nest on the strength of the feed and the weather turns. The Edinburgh review notes that feeding can also help colonies draw foundation, since plentiful food encourages wax production.
Remove feeders before the supers go on, and in most of England that means before oil seed rape.
Expect earlier swarming from a colony that has been pushed on. Check for queen cells every seven days.

Pollen substitutes and water: do UK bees need them?

Pollen

Pollen is the colony’s only natural source of protein. The NBU’s guideline on pollen points out that colonies do not store much of it, and that without nectar, pollen and gland secretions, brood production falls and in extreme cases stops. Michigan State University estimates that rearing one larva takes 25 to 37.5 mg of protein, equivalent to 125 to 187.5 mg of pollen, and that a colony collects 10 to 26 kg of pollen a year.

The NBU’s first answer is not a feed but forage: an adequate and varied source of pollen-bearing plants within flying range of the apiary, and a rethink of the site if pollen is regularly short. Our guide to plants for bees covers the UK species that fill the gaps, from willow and hazel in late winter to ivy in autumn.

If a colony is genuinely short of pollen, usually in a cold, wet March or April, the NBU suggests a frame of pollen from a disease-free colony in the same apiary, or a pollen substitute. It prefers commercial substitutes because their quality is assured. As a guide:

about 50 g a week for a small colony on three frames, and up to 500 g for a strong one;
place the cake on the top bars over the cluster, ideally over open brood, under its paper so it stays moist, since bees ignore a cake that dries out;
keep feeding until there is an adequate natural pollen crop, because stopping too early can cut brood food production and starve larvae.

A starving colony needs sugar before protein, and no substitute should stay on once supers go on.

The NBU’s guideline also gives a homemade recipe based on soya flour, brewer’s yeast and skimmed milk powder. Treat it with caution: skimmed milk contains lactose, one of the sugars Michigan State University lists as indigestible and toxic to bees, and the NBU itself notes that homemade substitutes vary in nutritional value.

Never use pollen from another beekeeper or of unknown origin: the NBU warns that it can spread disease. Pollen you trap yourself from a strong, healthy colony can be kept in a deep freeze at -18°C, as the NBU suggests.

Water

Bees do not store water. According to the NBU, “reservoir bees” carry it in when needed, to dilute stored honey and to cool and humidify the hive, and foragers can travel up to 2 km for it. A colony feeding on fondant or crystallised stores in early spring needs water nearby. If the apiary has no natural source, provide a shallow container with stones for the bees to land on, or put floats on open water such as a water butt so they do not drown. The NBU notes that bees prefer water warmer than 18°C, and that a nearby source keeps them out of neighbours’ ponds.

Which feeder should you use?

Feeder	Best use	Advantages	Drawbacks
Rapid or pan feeder over the crown board	Autumn stores	Up to about 10 litres; refill without opening the brood box	Less used in very cold weather
Contact feeder (inverted bucket or jar with mesh) over the feed hole	Spring, emergencies, cool weather	Syrup sits right above the cluster	Cold syrup can crystallise and block the mesh
Frame feeder	Nuclei, queen rearing	Inside the brood box	Takes the place of a frame; needs a float to stop drowning
Fondant block	Winter, early spring, nuclei	No liquid; slow uptake limits robbing	Not for building stores
Pollen cake under paper	Pollen shortage in spring	Placed right over the brood	Dries out; attracts pests if left uneaten

Whatever you choose must fit your hive: National, WBC, Commercial and Langstroth feeders are not interchangeable. Fill in the evening and check for leaks before you walk away.

How do you keep syrup out of your honey, and what do the rules say?

Honey law in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Honey composition is regulated separately in each nation, with nearly identical texts: the Honey (England) Regulations 2015, the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Honey (Wales) Regulations 2015 and the Honey Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015. In each, honey sold as honey must have no food ingredient added, including food additives, and most honey must contain no more than 20% water, with heather honey allowed up to 23%. Sugar syrup stored in supers and extracted with the crop breaks that rule. Four habits keep you safe:

never feed with supers on the hive;
stop all spring feeding before the supers go on;
remove any leftover fondant or pollen cake before the first super;
never move a brood frame that has been filled with syrup up into a super.

Feeding honey: only your own, and only if healthy

Honey is the natural food, but it is the riskiest one to feed. The NBU says never to feed honey from unknown sources, because bought honey can contain the spores of American foulbrood and the bacteria of European foulbrood, both notifiable diseases in the UK. It also advises against feeding honey from your own colonies unless there is no history of disease in your apiaries, and its BBKA News article adds that feeding honey encourages robbing. A capped frame of honey taken from a strong, healthy colony in the same apiary is the best emergency food you can give. Registering on BeeBase, or with DAERA in Northern Ireland, means you hear about foulbrood outbreaks near you: see how to register your bees, and our guide to honey bee diseases to recognise the signs.

Organic beekeeping

Organic rules differ across the Irish Sea. In Great Britain, organic production still follows the retained versions of the EU organic regulations. Article 19(3) of the retained Regulation 889/2008 requires that hives be left with sufficient reserves of honey and pollen at the end of the season to survive the winter, permits feeding only where the survival of the colonies is endangered by climatic conditions, and limits feed to organic honey, organic sugar syrups or organic sugar. Northern Ireland, under the Windsor Framework, applies the newer EU Regulation 2018/848, in force since 1 January 2022. This may change: the NFU expects a UK-EU SPS agreement to make the EU organic regulation apply in Great Britain too, but in September 2026 the Food Standards Agency reported that negotiations were still under way, with implementation planned for summer 2027. If you sell organic honey, ask your certification body which feeds it accepts before you buy any, particularly pollen substitutes containing yeast or soya.

Our guide to harvesting honey explains how to take the crop off cleanly, the first step in deciding how much feed your bees will need.

Frequently asked questions

What is the NBU recipe for sugar syrup for bees?

For thick syrup, the National Bee Unit uses 1 kg of white granulated sugar to 630 ml of water, the old 2 lb to 1 pint. Thin syrup is 1 kg of sugar to 1,260 ml of warm water. Dissolve the sugar in warm water but never boil the mixture. Thick syrup is for autumn stores; thin syrup is for spring and emergency feeding.

How much honey should I leave on my hive for winter?

The NBU puts an average colony's winter needs at 18 to 22 kg, and asks for about 20 kg in autumn, more for a large colony with a prolific queen. A full super holds at least 12 kg and a full British Standard brood frame about 2.3 kg, so a full super and three or four brood frames of honey is roughly the target. Feed any shortfall in September.

When should I stop feeding sugar syrup in autumn?

Aim to finish in September or early October while days are still mild, because the bees need warmth to take down syrup, evaporate it and cap it. The NBU says syrup should not be fed in winter because it is too cold for the bees to use it. If a hive is still short of stores at the end of October, switch to fondant placed over the cluster.

Can I use brown sugar or honey to feed my bees?

No to brown sugar: the NBU advises white granulated or caster sugar only, because brown and raw sugars contain impurities and can cause dysentery. Cane or beet makes no difference. Never feed bought honey or honey of unknown origin, which can carry American and European foulbrood. Even your own honey should only be used if your apiaries have no history of disease.

When should I give my bees fondant?

Use fondant in winter and very cold weather when a hive feels light, and in early spring before the bees can take syrup. Place it over the crown board feed hole or on the top bars above the cluster, with a cut in the wrapping. The NBU suggests checking on warm days every two to three weeks in winter and replacing it as it is eaten.

Should I feed my bees in spring?

Only if they are short of stores or the weather stops foraging. The NBU says thin syrup to encourage brood rearing is pointless if a colony already has enough stores. In March and April a colony should still have at least four to five combs of stores, about 9 kg. If it has less, feed thin syrup in a contact feeder or give fondant until the weather allows.

Do bees need pollen substitute in the UK?

Usually not, if the apiary has varied forage within flying range, which is the NBU's first recommendation. A substitute can help in a cold, wet early spring when brood rearing stalls for lack of pollen. The NBU prefers commercial products to homemade ones, suggests about 50 g a week for a small colony on three frames and up to 500 g for a strong one. Take it off before the supers go on.

What is the best feeder for autumn feeding?

A rapid feeder or a large pan feeder over the crown board, because it lets you give up to about 10 litres at a time without opening the brood box. Contact feeders are better in spring and in cool weather because the syrup sits right above the cluster. Frame feeders suit nuclei and queen rearing but need a float to stop bees drowning.

Sources

Feeding bees: sugar (Best Practice Guideline 7a), Animal and Plant Health Agency, National Bee Unit
Feeding bees: water (Best Practice Guideline 7b), Animal and Plant Health Agency, National Bee Unit
Feeding bees: pollen and substitutes (Best Practice Guideline 7c), Animal and Plant Health Agency, National Bee Unit
Preparing your hives for winter (Fact sheet 19), Animal and Plant Health Agency, National Bee Unit
Feeding bees (BBKA News, August 2012, pp. 7-8), National Bee Unit, APHA
The effect of spring feeding on the development of honeybee colonies (Bee World 31(9), 1950), Eva Crane, Eva Crane Trust
Spring feeding: a worthwhile activity?, University of Edinburgh, Bee Group
Honey bee nutrition, Michigan State University, Pollinator Apiculture Lab
Evaluation of the risks for animal health related to the presence of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in feed for honey bees (EFSA Journal 2022;20(4):7227), European Food Safety Authority, CONTAM Panel
Phenology of farmland floral resources reveals seasonal gaps in nectar availability for bumblebees (Timberlake, Vaughan, Memmott, Journal of Applied Ecology 56, 2019), University of Bristol, via Cardiff University ORCA
Ivy: an underappreciated key resource to flower-visiting insects in autumn (Garbuzov and Ratnieks, Insect Conservation and Diversity 7, 2014), University of Sussex
The Honey (England) Regulations 2015, Schedule 1, legislation.gov.uk
The Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015, legislation.gov.uk
The Honey Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, legislation.gov.uk
Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008, Article 19 (retained in Great Britain), legislation.gov.uk
An update to the Board on the Food Standards Agency's SPS programme (September 2026), Food Standards Agency, GOV.UK
UK-EU SPS negotiations: organics (updated April 2026), National Farmers' Union
Ambrosia bee food syrup (product specification), Ambrosia, Nordzucker
Ambrosia syrup 12.5 kg jerry can (price), Abelo
Ambrosia fondant 12.5 kg (price), Abelo