How does it all stack up?

[Valarie]

I am a newbee and have decided to feed my newly hived packages with 1 qt mason jars of syrup with perforated lids inside an empty super. The bees are in a deep super under the inner cover, then one jar is over the oval hole in the inner cover, it does not cover the hole completely. An empty medium super houses this with a telescoping cover on top. I have also seen where the jars were placed directly on the frames, with the inner cover above the empty super just under the telescoping cover.
I am wondering if it matters how you place the feeder / inner cover, or what the pros and cons may be. I assume by placing the inner cover on bottom you disturb the bees less if you just want to check or change jars? Does all this empty space effect their "bee space"? Will they try to build comb there? I also read about placing crumpled newspaper around the jar of syrup to take up the empty space is this really necessary, or maybe close the rest of the hole off.
I'm sure I'm worrying about something that probably doesn't matter all that much anyways and hopefully soon enough I can take the jars off altogether! :)
But if anyone who feeds their bees this way can share their experience, much appreciation! :D

[Jerrymac]

As I understand it the bees do not consider the space above the inner cover as their hive, so they will not build in it. One thing I had problems with is leakage. The temps change thirty degrees around here from day to night and this causes the jar to suck in more air at night then expand when it gets warmed up in the day time, dumping sugar water down into the hive onto the bees. Mr. Bush advised me to set the jar to the side of the hole up on some pieces of wood or something for spacers. That worked out better. The bees collected most of it as it puddled on the inner cover then.

[Michael Bush]

>As I understand it the bees do not consider the space above the inner cover as their hive, so they will not build in it.

Usually.

Here's one that moved the brood nest into a hive top feeder.  I wouldn't count on it.

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/BroodNestInFeeder.JPG

I like to staple some #8 hardware cloth on the top over the hole and then put the jar on that.  The bees can't get through and you can more easily fill the jar.