Open feeder question???

[Budster]

If I place an open feeder within 50 feet of my hive, will this encourage robbing? I really enjoy watching the local ferels and "bee linning" them to see what my hive has to compete with. Last year, I had 3 local ferel hives. I could tell by bee lining. I would like to do it again, but dont want to encourage robbing. Kinda neat though, O'Hare airport had nothing on my backyard last year. Bees were coming and going, mind you, in 3 different directions... Kinda neat they can do this without Air Traffic Control!!!

[Michael Bush]

>If I place an open feeder within 50 feet of my hive, will this encourage robbing?

Sometimes.

[Budster]

Thanks MB... I'll probably refrain from it in the future. Just dont know too much about bees, this is only my second year. I read everything I can, and have gained the most knowledge from this website. I was the kid that was always scared of honey bees... Now, I'm anxious to come home, sit on my deck, and watch my "busy bees" while I enjoy a (drink of my choice). So relaxing... And talk about a great time, thats going into the hive and noseing around looking to see whats going on. Trying to figure out what I shoulda did, what I need to do next, etc. Never thought I'd see the day I would enjoy opening a bee hive. It woulda been nice to have a mentor, but hey, Beesource made me feel confident! So to summerize, read all the books you want, but the Beesource members will provide much knowledge, that is up to the minute and wont steer you wrong!

[Dan Williamson]

If I place an open feeder within 50 feet of my hive, will this encourage robbing?

Yes it can.... Will it? Who knows... I open feed all the time.... I currently have 2 five gal buckets of syrup about 6 feet in front of one of my hives. No biggie... Personally, I think you'll be fine. Go for it!

[BjornBee]

Budster,
First, lets take a look at when you open feed. For me, thats early spring on those days warm enough for bees to fly but prior to any real flower source being available. Or, in the dearth periods of no flow at all. Or, it would be in the fall when frost has killed most of the floral source but the bees are active on those warm afternoon days.

Second, Bees normally do not need feeding during the main flow periods when building foundation, or when supers are on for honey collecting.

With this in mind, I have found that having a platform open feeder during the early spring and fall periods actually keeps the bees occupied and I have seen little robbing. I have some yards with full size support hives (2 or 3 Deeps) among perhaps 75 to 100 nucs. Some being a couple frames of bees. You would think this huge imbalance of colony strengths I would see alot of robbing. But I don't.

Keep in mind, that a properly ventalated hive does not need to have a full inch or two open along the entire front of the hive. Most of my hives have the dadant metal entrance reducer and it gives about a 5/16 inch hiegth opening, and this is about 6 inches long. Your bees do not need more than this if proper top ventalation is provided. I have seen massive natural feral colonies that were happy using an opening no more than the size of a quarter.

There may be exceptions, but if you have rather large openings, weak hives, strong or prolonged periods of dearth, then regardless of open feeding or not, you will likely see robbing.

I try to keep my platform stations a minimum of 100 feet away. I read somewhere that bees really don't have a language to indicate a source anything closer than this distance. So they end up just indicating "somethings close by to the left", and its up to the bees to home in on the food source. Of course after the bees feed for a couple days they don't need to test every hive till they find where they should be going.

I like open feeding also because it allows each hive to maximize their potential of honey storage based on their ability/strength. Why just selectively feed one or two weak hives that may be robbed by stronger hives not being fed. A weak or light hive is usually in a very poor state to process alot of syrup. So why not just take some full frames from a stronger hive and open feed, thus ensuring the stronger hives collect more and make up and deficit they have since you robbed a few frames.

I find selectively feeding hives that are lagging others in the same yard is about the worst case scenario you can choose.

[Chef Isaac]

Bjorn:

That is an interesting concept you present. About not feeding weak colonies. I have been thinking about this lately and ask myself: why baby weak hives? I like the open feeding idea. Do you have a cover for open feeding to avoid rain getting in? I do like to feed colonies each to their own feed in the late winter/early fall to build up population as here we get a lot of rain.

I am tired of filling mason jars and buckets. :(

[Michael Bush]

>why baby weak hives?

Because they turn into strong hives. :)

But I agree, I'd rather feed the strong hives and steal the honey to feed the weak ones.

[Albert]

Evening guys,
When I extract honey I let the bees clean the frames by hanging them in a box by my wood/metal working shop. I put a couple of sticks across the top and then a piece of plywood for a cover. The box sits on top of a criss-crossed stack of boxes. I also put all the squeezed wax in a large bowl for them to clean up.

I haven't had any robbing incidents, except when I made a couple of nucs and spilled honey inside them.

Regards,
Albert