Bees took up a large pan of syrup

[KONASDAD]

I too am in a severe drought. My bees consumed all of the honey they had stored. About 80 lbs between the supers and what they had stored in their brood area. Any thoughts of a first year harvest just went out the window.


When emergency feeding, Do you use the thinner spring syrup, or a thicker fall mixtrure?

[tom]

Gentlemen

   I do not want to do bad beek managment so i am taking your advice to heart and wrote it in my book of not what to do and to do. So when a problem comes up i can always gop back and see the do's and dont's it a sort of book that will keep me on track. Thank you gentlemen for the advice and there will be no more feeding out in the sky but feeding inside the hive from now on.

Tom

[Mici]

eeermmm, please can someone tell me how far away from hives i'd have to "feed" them so it wouldn't cause a robbing. or would the bees be threatened by hornets, wasps and other bees.

[Ross]

http://www.myoldtools.com/Bees/beefeeder.jpg

This my current feeder.  Just a dog waterer with gravel in the bowl.  It works great.  Very few dead bees.  They empty it in about an hour.  The 3 gallon water is $15 at Walmart.  There is a 5 gallon available some places for $25.

I feed about 100 yards from the hives, and behind a building.  My Observation Hive definitely got it's share, so I don't buy the idea that weak hives get shut out.

[Brian D. Bray]

A safe distance for an open feeder?  
Distance is less of a problem than appearance.  To decrease the chances of robbing it takes something like what Ross describes.  Placing such a feeder in the middle of an orchard or flower garden, where bees would expect to find nectar sources, is more likely to be most effective in curbing robbing.  
Some commercial Beekeepers have been known to use open feeders with 50 gallon drums full of syrup.  
The problem with open feeding is that all the bees from the same yard go to the same place to gather large quantities of syrup.  They "smell" the other bees so that when the syrup source is gone they then follow there noses to where there is more honey.  Robbing takes place, and when it does it is Ugly.
In the winter feeding as discribed above migth work as few bees will be flying and then only on days where the temp is above 50F.  
But be warned that any type of open area feeding can induce robbing and the closer to the hive that source is the greater the chance of robbing to occur.  
I do not recommend open feeding even when I can think of several ways to do it fairly successfully.  It is bad bee management periiod.  It says the beekeeper is to lazy to do it the right and/or proper way.

[Ross]

Around here, you can get robbing whether you feed or not, and whether you feed in the hive or out.  A dearth is a dearth and when it last 7 or 8 months, you do what you have to to keep the bees alive.  In my opinion, if you have to feed, it doesn't really matter how you do it.  Any method is possible to start robbing.  I haven't seen any robbing as a result of feeding, either honey from cutouts or from syrup.  My OB hive would be the first to get hit.  I would start feeding late in the day if you haven't fed before.  Once they have some syrup in the hives to protect, they are far less likely to start robbing.  Mine emptied the feeder twice in 4 hours.