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  • Bee Hive building & a place to share howto's on equipment
Bee Hive building & a place to share howto's on equipment
 #6808  by Cable_Fairy
 01 May 2020, 22:47
I have two 4.5ltr rapid feeders, these were bought from two bee suppliers and look identical; I can interchange the two lids and two top hats. If I put one of them in the hive and fill it up with 1ltr of syrup within an hour there is bees floating on the surface of the liquid. Removing that feeder and replacing it with the other one and emptying the syrup from the first into the second there is no bee fatalities. The cone that the bees walk down seem to be equally rough, but short of putting them under a microscope I can't tell. I am going to ditch the killer!!
 #6809  by stechad
 01 May 2020, 23:52
I had a similar problem with a wooden feeder from thornes I think, I coated the surface of the cone with grit using a food safe epoxy resin, worked fine ever since.
 #6812  by AndrewLD
 02 May 2020, 09:29
I assume we are talking about the English Feeder but the problem in there is many others. I score the surface of not only the cone but also the transparent cover - very few fatalities now. In a similar vein I drawing-pinned mesh to the painted surface of my Ashforth feeder -not normally any fatalities there either. When a bee is covered in syrup it just cannot get a grip and needs the equivalent of a net to hook onto.
 #6843  by AdamD
 04 May 2020, 10:01
Sometimes you see a few dead bees in syrup for no apparent reason; they tend to get removed by other bees... I wonder if the feeder just got them excited and a few daft ones got carried away and they will settle down using it from now on?