Increased Activity

**HotRod** · 05-23-2012, 02:49 PM

I am a very new beekeeper... 2 hives... 2 weeks. I added a feeder last night to both of my hives and today we are seeing a ton of activity in front of one of the hives. is this normal? Our hives are both new 5 frame nucs. Thanks for any help, I look forward to te day I can help a new beekeeper.

**Andrew Dewey** · 05-23-2012, 03:20 PM

What type of feeder did you add? Are there other managed hives kept near you?

**HotRod** · 05-23-2012, 03:26 PM

I added entrance feeders. Not sure if there are any other hive around. Thanks

**MrHappy** · 05-23-2012, 03:47 PM

I'm new too, but I'd say open the hive and try looking down and see where the bees go after leaving the feeder. If they feed and go out, then they are robbers. If they feed and go up then they are storing and they are growing nicely and harvesting. Also how fast are they going through the syrup? If they are all leaving and collecting AND feeding a jar a day, then it might be robbing.

Do you have an entrance reducer on? If you have it to the smallest setting and they are active then robbers can't really get in.

**Andrew Dewey** · 05-23-2012, 04:07 PM

Entrance feeders can be problematic and many bee keepers avoid them. Why? Because the syrup is kept outside the hive and if the feeder is not perfectly constructed it may leak and invite the neighborhood to feast.

When they work properly, entrance feeders only allow syrup to be taken from inside the hive. If you are seeing lots of activity you need to determine if it is due to bees getting syrup outside of the hive.

If you have an extra deep hive body, you can put the feeder on top of your inner cover or directly on the top bars and enclose it with the extra hive body. If that resolves the issue, my guess is that there is a problem with the feeder and that it was dispensing syrup outside of the hive. With the feeder out you should be able to use a standard entrance reducer.

I realize in Jacksonville it is quite warm now, but you are reducing the entrance to give the bees a smaller opening to defend, not so much to control temperature.