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« Last post by gww on Today at 09:39:08 pm »
Unless you are 100 plus yards away from the hives, you probably just cause more robbing. Have you got some coffee cans and an extra hive body? The 30 or so ounce ones will fit inside a hive body and you can put four of them filled with sugar water and some straw on top of your inter cover of your hurting hive and inside the hive body and just put you lid on and it will not cause any new robbing but if the hive is being robbed, it is probably got a problem that feed won't fix and will keep getting robbed with the food on top. If it is robbing because you used an entrance feeder, Putting the coffee cans in a hive body with a top over it will not cause new robbing. Plus the food goes where it is needed. I have did this tons of times with new swarms before they even got established and guards set up and it cause no problems. On the other hand. I once only had one hive and it was rainy and I figured not much would be flying and I put a chicken water of sugar water a couple of feet from it and that hive got robbed out lickity split and it did not stop when I got rid of the chicken water.
The only open feeding I believe in is when I want my extraction equipment cleaned as the bees do a better job. Some times if I make cinnamon rolls and have a little left over sugar I might set it out dry rather then put it in the trash but that is about it. Oh, I forgot, I am not too good if I have a dead out and have left them open when I found them and I have no doubt that that can put stress on weak hives around it but I believe in tough love and the bees just need to be tough enough to survive it. Open feeding for one hive makes zero sense but topping off in fall after the hives have reduced population is done by some commercials. Can't mess up other people's honey then.