A wooden hive top feeder is an efficient and economical way to provide sugar syrup when your colonies require it. It sits atop your hive with an easy access slot at its center that may or may not contain pine slatted floats for protection, or screening.
It fits ten-frame Langstroth-style hives and Warre hives with slight adjustments and comes fully assembled.
Contents
Material
This hive top feeder rests atop your hive and bees access it through a central slot. Equipped with wooden floats to prevent bee drowning and fully assembled, it holds 2 gallons of sugar syrup or can even be used as dry feed storage capacity.
Wooden frames can be constructed from either knotty or clear pine, with knotty pine being cheaper but potentially containing knots that could hinder construction. Clear pine is more costly but offers smoother wood which tends to be free of defects during production.
Plastic frames differ from traditional wooden ones in that they are mass produced to an identical size without needing assembly, are lighter, easier to handle, and require no glue or varnishing – which makes them an appealing option for beekeepers looking for quick and simple ways to feed their colony. Furthermore, these plastic frames are less susceptible to mold growth, can be coated in beeswax for additional protection, but some beekeepers remain concerned over potential leaching into honey products from plastic leaching into honey products.
Design
Top feeders can be used at slightly lower temperatures than frame feeders but do not hold as much syrup. On the plus side, refilling is much simpler without needing to remove an entire frame first.
Beehives are an efficient way to quickly feed large volumes quickly and effortlessly. Bees ascend a channel to access a pool of thick syrup through a narrow channel divider; an opaque wall prevents bees from drowning while roughened panels with 80 grit provide additional gripping surfaces for gripping bees that reduce risk of falling into it.
This Canadian made feeder is a polystyrene unit with a 3 gallon capacity that will save time by decreasing refill frequency. Featuring a chimney cage to prevent bee drowning and wooden floats that make standing easier, this feeder is also available boiled in wax for extra durability.
Capacity
This 1.75 gallon feeder fits directly on top of a 10-frame Langstroth hive box and features two inserts designed as “ladders” to prevent bees from drowning. In addition, there is a galvanized steel safety screen to stop bees entering its syrup compartment.
This type of feeder is easy to fill and reduces spilled syrup compared to gravity or frame feeders, while filling is faster and less disruptive to colonies as simply unwrapping one of the boxes covering it is enough to refill.
Homestead Essentials Ultimate Hive Feeder and Bee Rapid Feeder top feeders have large access areas so that more bees can take advantage of them at once – something which becomes especially essential during fall when bees work hard to build their stores for winter and may need food more quickly than normal.
Installation
Contrasting with entrance feeders that are placed outside, which require opening up the hive to access, hive top feeders are placed atop an inner cover and protected by an empty hive box – this design helps protect it from sun, wind and rain as well as protecting it from being access by robber bees who could access its contents – while also making medication easy to administer without opening up the hive itself.
Hive top feeder designs vary slightly; typically these feeders include a container filled with sugar syrup and hardware cloth to act as an internal ladder for bees to climb from their brood boxes onto. Furthermore, low grit sandpaper is often applied at the bottom of these feeders so bees can grip onto its surface more securely.
Hive top feeders make refilling simple: just remove the outer lid, turn upside down, flip over, and fill with gallon of sugar syrup!
