boardman feeders

maxsmoke · July 12, 2012, 11:53:13 PM

Hi folks,

I'm a new beekeeper with 4 hives all captured swarms. Hives 3 and 4 were very small swarms (pineapple and soccer ball sized) that I captured in May about 3 weeks after setting up the first two hives. 3 has just about completely drawn out the 2nd hive body and 4 has only drawn out 4 frames in the second hive body.

After reading horror stories about board man feeders causing robbing, attracting ants etc. I decided I needed to chance it and give these guys some supplemental feeding as the nectar flow here seems to be very low. So I put feeders in last night and put an entrance reducer on both hives. They took a quart each. two days in a row.

I've been putting the feeders in before dinner. I was running late tonight (after dark) so I thought I'd pull the feeders out and refill them in the morning. When I did I had a beard of bees hanging from the empty feeders where previously when refilling during the early evening I only had 5 or 6 bees.

Both days when I checked before work they had gone through about 1/2 a quart. So I'm wondering if maybe I could reduce the chances of causing a robbing issue by feeding only at night.

indypartridge · July 13, 2012, 07:28:59 AM

In my experience, the stories of Boardman feeders causing robbing are overblown. Certainly there is more likely to be robbing using a Boardman than some kind of feeder internal to the hive, but I've used Boardman feeders regularly for nucs and small colonies without problems.

maxsmoke · July 13, 2012, 09:30:37 AM

I was pretty certain that if they caused problems that they wouldn't be used. I was just amazed at the difference between pulling the feeder out at night vs. daylight. During the day the empty feeders had 5/6 bees still inside the tray. At night I literately pulled a beard of bees out with it.

yockey5 · July 13, 2012, 11:59:57 AM

I used the boardman feeders and have had no problems with them.

bassman1977 · July 13, 2012, 12:34:19 PM

I always have robbing problems when using them. Threw them all away. Even the hive tops cause me issues that are just as bad.

David McLeod · July 13, 2012, 01:15:03 PM

I have found that robbing of all types are related to two items. Strength of flow, if there is no flow bees will be looking for sugar. Strength of colony, a strong hive is more apt to strongarm their neighbors. Both can be alleviated by open feeding and or feeding all at once.

BeeMaster2 · July 13, 2012, 03:03:54 PM

Quote from: bassman1977 on July 13, 2012, 12:34:19 PM
I always have robbing problems when using them. Threw them all away. Even the hive tops cause me issues that are just as bad.

Same thing that I have seen, I try to avoid feeding as much as possible.
Jim

AllenF · July 13, 2012, 10:00:56 PM

You can always put the feeder inside the hive in a deep box. You will have to open the top to get the feeder, but with reducers in, robbing is cut down.