Feeding

[bassman1977]

I am going to open feed my hives this year.  Never used that method of feeding.  I want to reduce robbing the best I can but also feed all of the hives.  My plan is to place a 5 gallon bucket of feed 100+ feet away from the hives.  I was going to use a float of some sort as a landing board for them.

a couple of questions for those who have done this before...

1.  I have three hives that are going to be wintered in 3 medium boxes and one hive that will winter in two medium boxes...any idea how long it will take for the feed to be exhausted from the bucket?

2.  Does my plan sound good?  Suggestions?  :-D

3.  My hives are in a line side by side.  Should the feed be in front or behind the hive entrances?

[Kathyp]

the feed should be way away from the hives.  open feeding at this time of the year will attract yellowjackets, etc.  you don't want them around your hives.

with only 3, why not jar/bucket feed them.  seems like it would be easier.

[bigbearomaha]

here's how  i do it.   I keep the open feeder at least 50 feet away and out of line of sight of the hives.  so far, using this approach,  I can say  i have not seen a robbing episode yet.and the hives are easily visible from a window at all times, lots of opportunities to keep an eye on them.

I have seen 2 hives take 2 gallons of 2:1 feed in a day  (also remember other feeders will be there as well like flies, ants, etc...taking their share) it depends on how much of a flow is on, the more the natural nectar flow, the less they will pay attention to artificial feed usually.


good luck,

Big Bear

[AllenF]

Last year, I took a 5 gallon bucket and cut a circle with 1/4 plywood to fit the bottom of the bucket.  Then cut strips in the center if the round piece to let the bees feed through.   Fed them for a week and through it away.  They did drain the bucket everyday, but I did not like the numbers of dead bees  that piled up on top of the plywood.  Also there were a number of yellow jackets in the mix also.   I do not know how they drowned or were stung or died from cold after dark if they could not fly away.   But they did drain the bucket by the end of the day everyday.

[tecumseh]

rather than have some concern about distance from the hives I would be more concerned about 1) having hive entrance reducer on all my hives and 2) no other large number of bee hives in the vicinity.

I have never seen the circumstance when the barrel (55 gallon drums is what we used) did not have a large pile of dead bees in the bottom.  we used packing peanuts for the floating mechanism.  a bit more recently I have seen pictures of folks that altered dog waters to bee feeder with at least part of the idea being to reduce the number of dead bees.

in a lot of places yellow jackets (or at least what are called yellow jackets in some location) can be a problem (mostly by reference of others in the norhtwestern us of a) in most places however they are little to no problem what so ever.  I would check with some very local reference to make certain these are or are not a problem.