Chop Wood Carry Water Plant Seeds is a blog about Self-Sufficient Homesteading. How can we live by creating a sustainable bio-diverse world, instead of by consuming and destroying the only one we have? What kind of teaching have you got if you exclude nature?

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Feeding 5:3 Sugar Syrup in a chicken feeder

I was so happy to get a visit from a local Top Bar Hive Beekeeper :) Patrick is only 11km away from where i study. He tried feeding his bees this way so I decided to give it a go. You see I dont mind feeding sugar when absolutelly necessery but the fact that one must open the hive to refill the empty jar gives me a headacke so to speak :)
It is of great benefit to the bees to keep Their Hive Body closed and open it as little as possible to contain the hive atmosphere. After mixing 2 kg of sugar into 12dl of boiling water, i poured the cooled down syrup into a chicken feeder which I placed in the vacinity of the two hives. I placed another bucket above the feeder in case of rain. I made sure to lift one side of the bucket so bees can get under it. I made sure to place dry grass into the feeder tray so bees dont drown. Lets see how this goes and if its gonna trigger robbing.

1 comment:

  1. Just to comment ... This is the worst ever method to feed the bees ... why? because the chicken feeder sucked in bees each time it is to release some syrup. To release the syrup it must suck in some air ... with the air bees close to entrance get sucked in. When I came to check the empty feeder next day, sure they ate all the syrup but I discovered approx 50-60 bees in the feeder dead. Bee-friendly feeder would be an inverted jar with small holes in the lid, which Im using now.

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