FEEDING BEES for those with excess of 30 colonies

[BMAC]

I would like to know how you beeks out there with more than 30 colonies feed your bees.  I am specifically wondering about syrup feeding.  For example:

Using a 55 gallon drum and filll a water can with it to dump in the hives.

Using a 275 gallon tote with an old honey pump hooked up to a gas nozzle.

Things like that.  The reason I am curious is I am going to setup a system for feeding my girls syrup and want to build the best way I see fit for my purposes. 

[Ross]

It depends.  In cold weather I use 2 gallon buckets on top of the hive.  In hot weather, I usually open feed using dog waterers.
http://www.myoldtools.com/Bees/beefeeder.jpg

[DennisB]

Ross,

Do you get much robbing with this type of feeding? How about other animals such as skunks or coons bothering it?
Thanks,

Dennis

[BMAC]

I have done a little bit of slop feeding in 5 gallon pails with straw thrown in the bottom.  I have frame feeders in all my colonies so I am thinking about setting up a gear pump on a 55 gallon drum with a garden hose attached to fill all the feeders. 

[KONASDAD]

Most of the comercial operations I have seen use HFSC w/ a hose dispenser into frame feeders. Some also make open feeders w/ gutters and screen on top around yard, barrels w/ hay etc. Having been in those yards in the fall, I would never do it myself if I lived anywhere near people. The bees rob and are viscious. This farmer had over 200 acres so he was near no one and could get away w/ it. Having said that, the bees are aftyer you the time you get out of your car until you get back in in late october here.

[pdmattox]

I use one of those plastic totes and at the top I have a air fitting that you can hook up a portable air compressor with a regulator and pressurize the tank. I use a hose with a nozzle on the end and fill the jars up.  You can also take a piece of pvc with a air fitting on one end  to mix the syrup and water. It is a lot easier than trying to stir 200 gallons at once. My plastic tote is on a trailer right now, when the skid steer gets fixed it will ride on the back of my flatbed.

[BMAC]

thanks Dallas.  I have considered pushing syrup that way, but I thought in the fall feeding it would be way too cold and thick to be able to use air pressure. 

are you using a garden hose for filling?

The guys I have seen use garden hoses.  I may just stick with a drum and gear pump for now.  I can feed all my bees right now with 2 barrels.  I think I will have a portable type pump and feed tubes going into the barrels and have my sone jockey around the feed tube when one barrel is empty.

[pdmattox]

Yep a hose is what I use. I wonder if there was a way to keep the syrup warm enought to push it through when it is cold up there. I like the drum method to though. I will try to get a pic of my set up by the weekend.

[BMAC]

For now I mix my own syrup, so I suppose I could wrap insulation around my drums and just dump the hot syrup in it and feed NOW!!!


Its a toss up.  Spend more on a portable air compressor and pressurized drums, or spend money on a gear pump and pump the syrup.

I do like the idea of compressed air as it is much less spilled syrup....  I may have to play around with 66% fall syrup with compressed air.....

[pdmattox]

Just thinking out loud now but I just thought of somthing. Don't they make drum heaters that you cand adjust the temp on .  You don't nessarily need an air compressor to use the tote, you could gravity feed but through a bigger hose.

[BMAC]

I did think about the barrel heaters.  However they may scorch the syrup like they would honey.  I am not convinced the temp control is really well controlled.  Not to mention those things are around 200 bucks.  Also.....

My friend pours polyurethane for a living and does it at a shop at his home.  He has to use 2 barrel heaters because although they work great, in the cooler months it will only heat the direct area where it is wrapped around the barrel and leave the other area completely cold.

I was told that gravity fed doesn't work with 50 feet of hose.

[Ross]

I find far less robbing when I feed in the open, feeding all colonies at once, summer or fall.  There is no incentive for the bees to go to other colonies as there is no more syrup there than at home.  A leaking hive feeder is the worst for promoting robbing.  My bees pay no attention to people in the yard as they are busy collecting syrup, just as they pay no attention when collecting nectar on a flow.  When all colonies are fed, all of the bees have an incentive to stay home and guard the hive instead of robbing, just like a flow.  I feed out of direct site of the hives, about 100-150 yards away. 

[BMAC]

a couple 55 gallons drums?