I have 2 top feeders that the bees wont use. I see a little mold around it.
Are bees really picky about mold? I have cleaned them some but they still won’t use them.
Joe
Maybe they don’t need the food? I guess the mold could make it taste off too, if there’s a lot of it. Try cleaning it all out with a bleach solution and putting it back in fresh. If the bees still don’t bother with it then they must not need/have room for it.
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I have outside feeders as well and they go crazy for them.
Maybe that is the problem - too much choice! 
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Get rid of the open feeders.
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Bees don’t like something about mold, they won’t walk on it if there is much build up. Go with @Eva s suggestion with washing the feeder with bleach solution then a rinse off.
Regards
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I didn’t add the outside feeders until they refused to use the in hive feeders.
If they are not using your inside feeders it would suggest to me they have enough food. External feeders are a good way to spread disease and start robbing.
Cheers
Rob.
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Soaked all my feeders in clorox water and put back in with fresh sugar water. We will see what happens.
Also sprayed bottom of top cover with clorox as it had some mold as well.
Joe
You can actually put household chlorine bleach (unscented) into feeds as well if you want to inhibit mold. Randy Oliver suggests 2.5ml to 4ml (half to one scant teaspoon) per US gallon (4 liters) of feed. It doesn’t hurt the bees, as they drink swimming pool water which has a similar chlorine and salt content. It stops mold for a couple of months. 
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Took a peak today and they seem to be drink some now. I will know better in a day or 2. I guess I need to periodically clorox the feeders.
They need to take it in. Starting to get cold and some of the hives have hardly any stores. Feeding the lightest hives first.
Joe
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Definitely taking syrup in better sinc cloroxing the feeders. One hive emptied it, the other 2 drank some but not a lot.
Hoping for some warm weeks in Novemeber to get more food into them.
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They are slurping it down now. Weather warmed a bit but the big difference is cloroxing the feeders. I can now highly recommend to occasionally soak your feeders in clorox.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Joe
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