feeder for OB hive

[berkshire bee]

I'm building a 2 deep frame Observation hive to bring on bee talks. It's based loosely on the beesource plans. I have a few questions. One is how long could the bees be away from the hive without feeding if I decided to not have a feeder built in? The other questions I have are about feeders and keeping any bees from escaping in a classroom or other setting. My idea was to have the inverted jar lid rest on a piece of screening so the bees can still access the sugar water from below the screen, but the jar could be removed for transporting without any bee escaping. The big question is would the screen cause the sugar water to leak out. Thanks for any advice. I will need to finish this up before the weekend since I'm doing a kids fair on Sunday.

[honeyman46408]

I (we) have two frame O hives that we display at the county Fair (one frame brood and one frame honey) and they do "ok" for 10 days then I bring them home and put them in a nuc. In 10 days they will eat a lot of the frame of honey. NO feeder.

[Grandpa Jim]

Here is the feeded I added on to my 2 frame OH from Betterbee. I have a screen under the bottle and it works very well. The bees will empty a one pound bottle of syrup in 8 hours.
Jim
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...6/bees2025.jpg

[Michael Bush]

One that holds a two frames is nice. Then you can put in a frame of honey and a frame of brood.

[berkshire bee]

Grandpa Jim, Michael, and honeyman, Thank you all for your replies and the picture. I used the hive this weekend at the local kid's fair. It was a big hit among the kids and adults alike. As a bonus I sold some 1/2 lb jars and some comb honey.

[honeyman46408]

Here are the hives at the county Fair this year

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...g?t=1190684744

[berkshire bee]

honeyman, I always enjoy pictures that beekeepers post. My OB hive worked great. The only hitch was, being outside it attracted a couple of other honeybees. Luckily it was only 2 during the course of the afternoon and they couldn't get in to get samples to bring back to their hives. A few people thought one of my bees got out!