Wednesday, September 8, 2010

1gal pail feeder

bee, bee package, beekeeping, counting board, debris, feeder, Honey B Healthy, Lula Georgia, P.N. Williams, pail feeder, Small Hive Beetle, varroa,
I'm using one gallon pail feeders and Honey B Healthy purchased from P.N. Williams.  It's seems easier to make large batches of syrup and have two pail feeders per hive.
  • bees take a few minutes to clear the pail feeder and if a pail feeder is left completely empty, then propolis may cover the pail feeder screen
  • electrical tape helps line-up the pail feeder screen and inner cover hole
  • inverting the pail feeder over a bucket helps control ant attracting spills
These bee packages have been fed continuously since May.  According to my counting board results, this has been my best year for controlling small hive beetles and varroa mites--this is also the first year with Lula Georgia bee packages and continuous feeding with Honey B Healthy

According to the official climate summary, this is a record setting warm summer which followed a prolonged winter--as always it seems difficult to apply the conventional rules of a normal beekeeping year when no two years have the same weather.  As I heard Malcolm T. Sanford says, "all bee keeping is local," meaning that continuous feeding may not work in your apiary.

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