Open Feeding A Holding Yard

**Countryboy** · 09-26-2010, 02:55 PM

Here is a quick clip showing how to feed bees in a holding yard by open feeding with a barrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPxLaDp-i6k

**brac** · 09-26-2010, 03:31 PM

So to keep them from robbing, do you just never let it get empty?

**AndreiRN** · 09-27-2010, 11:14 AM

I have tried comunal feeding and eded up with a lot of dead bees.

**Specialkayme** · 09-27-2010, 08:51 PM

I have thought about trying an open feeding situation, but I don't know anything about it, and all I can picture is a horrible mess happening. Robbing bees everywhere, and whoever doesn't rob is dead.

Any personal experiences?

**alpha6** · 09-27-2010, 09:37 PM

We use the same but with wood chips to float on top and also with the cover above the barrel with a gap provided by 2x4's. It's an easy way to feed. The only problem I find is that the strong colonies get lots of feed but the weak ones usually just get weaker as they can't compete.

**peacekeeperapiaries** · 09-27-2010, 09:43 PM

we open feed when necessary, and place the feed buckets/barrels at least 100 yards from the hives....no robbing issues

**Beee Farmer** · 09-27-2010, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by alpha6

We use the same but with wood chips to float on top and also with the cover above the barrel with a gap provided by 2x4's. It's an easy way to feed. The only problem I find is that the strong colonies get lots of feed but the weak ones usually just get weaker as they can't compete.

Ditto!

**Beeslave** · 09-28-2010, 01:14 AM

Countryboy

Are those the blow bees in their new homes that are being fed?

It looks like you guys(Ron) are killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Blow the bees into the new boxes, place an excluder on top of that, place the hive body that the bees were blown out of on top of the excluder and put the lid on. Now when the brood is hatching in the old box they will backfill that and syrup won't have to be sprayed into the combs for next years packages. Leaving more time for fishing. At the same time the lower chamber is filled with brood and syrup so they will be all ready to go to FL for the winter and make a dandy orange crop when you pull your package ready deep off the top.

**Countryboy** · 09-30-2010, 10:10 PM

Peacekeeperapiaries is right. Put your drum 100 yards or so away, and robbing is minimal. If a hive does get robbed out, it was probably too weak to amount to anything anyway.

Even using a bunch of straw in the barrel, there still ended up being a couple inches of dead bees at the bottom of the barrel. Considering the number of bees in the yard, the dead bees won't make an impact on the hives.

Are those the blow bees in their new homes that are being fed?

These are the shake bees. They had been shaken out of Ron's boxes and into the buyer's single deep boxes. The buyer put a division board feeder in each hive, plus the 55 gallon drum to help them put on weight.

After shaking the bees out of the boxes, we don't put that old brood box on top. We just stack up the brood boxes in the yard. (We try to make sure we keep enough bees in the box to keep out moths as the brood all hatches.) They will get sprayed full of syrup during the slow time this winter.