I started feeding two hives with thick sugar syrup using identical Ashforth feeders last Sunday. The hives are next to each other and the queens are sisters. The first hive was from a nuc and the second, which I got several weeks after the first, was a full colony. Having filled both feeders at the same time with 5 litres of syrup, I checked on them a few days later and found that the first hive had completely emptied the feeder, but the second had hardly touched it. Of the two hives, even before we fed them, the first hive already had more stores than the second. The second hive had a few drowned bees in the space where the bees take up the syrup, but otherwise there are no obvious differences between the two. Can anyone offer any advice on whether this is normal, and nothing to worry about, or if the second hive needs something else to encourage it to take the syrup?
You sometimes need to spill some syrup down the insides of the feeders to encourage the bees to follow the syrup trail upwards to "discover" the free feed.
Occasionally, no matter what you do, they aren't interested. I've no idea why.
It's a good idea to have some idea of store levels. If your 2nd hive is low and won't take syrup you can always remove stores from your other hive and replace frames. as required.
You can continue feeding through October/Nov, so no real rush.