Feeders are used by beekeepers to provide bee colonies with pollen or honey substitutes or water. Beekeepers usually feed feeders during spring comb building seasons or drought conditions to provide energy to bee colonies and support energy needs of bee colonies.
Open feeders can attract robber bees and wasp pests to your hives, competing for sustenance and possibly spreading diseases into weaker colonies.
How to Make a Mason Jar Bee Feeder
Reusing old glass jars that would otherwise end up in the trash or recycling bin can be a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly project idea. Plus, making these improvements will cost nothing!
There are various methods available for feeding honey bees, each offering advantages and drawbacks. While certain methods may be more efficient than others, others can lead to complications if used incorrectly.
Division board feeders are one of the more commonly used feeders. This type of feeder can be placed inside of a hive and holds large quantities of syrup; however, cleaning may be difficult and robbing may occur as a result.
An alternative option for feedering new colonies or small swarms may be a bucket feeder, which should preferably be located outside. To prevent robbers from other hives from feeding there, place it away from your hives so as to reduce robbery attempts from feeding through its openings.
Materials
Beekeepers use feeders as containers to provide pollen, sugar or honey substitutes to the colony when there are not enough natural resources or they want to promote specific behaviors within their hives. When feeding, beekeepers provide pollen or honey replacement products through feeding stations in feeders that can then be distributed among beehives in need of extra sustenance.
Feeders can be placed either outside or inside a beehive. Outside feeders typically consist of buckets of sugar syrup with perches to allow bees access. These buckets typically use 1:1 water-sugar solutions while some beekeepers employ denser syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water), which requires the use of floats in order to prevent bees from drowning.
Boardman feeders (featured in the video) use small mason jars with wide-mouth openings to store feed near the entrance of a hive, making refilling quick and monitoring easy; they may however become susceptible to freezing in winter. Inside hive feeders such as those sold by Dadant and Sons offer more convenience by replacing frames within the hive for feeding closer proximity, decreasing opportunities for robbing.
Instructions
Healthy honey bee colonies should have enough reserves for winter; however, weather conditions and other factors can necessitate additional feedings of sugar syrup in order to avoid depleted colonies and the introduction of diseases into your bees. It is crucial that additional feedings only happen as needed and are only done so with permission and only when absolutely necessary.
Entrance feeders are a popular method used by beekeepers, consisting of a standard jar placed at the opening to the hive with a feeding tray inside, placed so it can easily be reached for feedings in both spring and fall, or as winter approaches. When filling it, fill with 1:1 sugar water for spring feedings and 2:1 for fall/winter feeds.
This kind of feeder is also easy to create and makes an effective alternative to pans of sugar water that attract wasps, birds and other unwanted visitors. Simply take any one or two gallon pail and drill 12-inch holes all around its lip near its top edge with small divider walls between each hole – to create this simple entrance feeder!
