Feeders....which type works best with FlowHives?

I have had an active bee feeder station in place for over two years now. Getting past everyone’s concerns I still hope you all see the need to “feed the bees” in off-flowering months of the year.
Love Bees, theOZer

@theOZer Ozer I’m inclined to agree with Dex.

We want to prompt good husbandry of the bees for new bee keepers as well as swapping anecdotal ideas.

Feeding the bees may seem kind, but you may be actually promoting robbing, disease and encouraging wasps, yellow jackets who can and will attack and weaken hives - recently wasps got out of hand and we (Dex and I) know a new keeper who lost their bees because of wasps. Needless to say they were heart broken.

We all have different opinions, and different ways that work for each of us. We are just trying to give advice from what has and hasn’t worked for us individually.

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I am new to beekeeping and live in Washington state, USA. I chose to feed my new hive of bees with the front feeder; however it does not fit into the entrance slot of my hive so I just set it near the hive. I have done this now for several months. Now there are robber bees coming and I see quite a struggle going on between my bees and the visitors. So, I moved the feeders away from the hive. I continue to see the struggle going on as both my bees and the visitors vie for the sugar water. I plan to stop putting the feed out and hope the visitors quit visiting. What else can I do to discourage the robber activity?

Entrance feeders are always risky for robbers, so you have done the best thing by stopping using one.

I like the hive top feeders from Brushy Mountain, but if you have Argentine ants in your region, they can be be disastrous. Next best in my experience, a pail feeder inside an empty deep and above an inner cover. Here are some photos of how to use them. The most important thing is to ensure that the lid is sealed on tight. The benefit is that they are entirely inside the hive, and you can prevent robbing access if you are careful.


Thanks for the reply, Dawn. I now have two brood boxes and my Flow Hive super on top. If I want to continue feeding my bees is this pail feeder to be above the super? I would like to bees to be natural and not depend on the sugar water, but have been advised to feed the bees with Honey Bee Healthy type mixture which I make myself.
Don

Note: my visitor bees are quite black and some are entirely black bodied. I don’t know where they come from but suspect they are from wild bees in the area.

You should never feed with a Flow (or any other) super on top of the brood boxes. A super is meant to take excess honey, if you are needing to feed, the bees do not have an excess to give you! :blush: To answer your question in another way, your pail feeder should be above the brood boxes, on top of an inner cover, and below the outer telescoping cover or gabled roof.

Never use Honey Bee Healthy (HBH) if you have robbing. It makes it worse as other bees can smell it from a huge distance away.

If this was my hive, I would remove the Flow super, stop adding HBH to the feed and switch to a pail feeder or a hive top feeder, making sure that the inner cover and roof don’t let robbers into the feed space. Hope that helps. Please keep asking, we want to help you and your bees. :wink:

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I will check my brood boxes. I was going by weight for fill to accommodate winter feeding. I shied away from actually looking at the frames. I need to do that and then decide if feeding needs to be continued by taking the super off as you suggest. Thanks for the advice.

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I agree.
If you have been feeding, that’s what will be in your super so when you harvest you will be eating Honey Bee Healthy.

Dawn, is that a contact feeder?
Do you have any trouble losing syrup if the temperature drops overnight?

This is the exact model. No overnight losses, just ants can get in from the side and the top without going through the hive… :scream:
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/8-Frame-Hive-Top-Feeder-w_Floats/productinfo/262/

Most feeders were too big to go under FlowHive roof, so you need an empty brood/super box to allow for those.

Contact feeders were too messy because some bees would always die when I tried to top up the syrup.

So, I wanted a Rapid feeder that allow me to top up the syrup without disurbing any bees.

https://www.honeyflow.com/faqs/what-feeders-will-work-with-a-flow-hive/p/188 shows photos but doesn’t include links to exactly which models are shown. The shallow rapid feeder I ended up getting was a “1.5 Litre (3 pint) Shallow Rapid Feeder” (if you need to search for it). I’m in the UK so bought it here:
http://www.simonthebeekeeper.co.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_category_id=6&virtuemart_product_id=104&Itemid=101

A few photos of it : https://goo.gl/photos/M9AHryfV1YGmHEUp8