I would like to know if those of you who use pail feeders on hive top buy them or make them ? If you buy them , where do you get them in CANADA , and if you make them how ?
I get the 1 or 2 gallon icing buckets from the Walmart bakery for cheap or free. I then drill quite a few 1/16" holes in the lid, more toward the center if being used over an inner cover. They work well for me, but I now use pro-feeders.
I do not know where to get pails by you, but we buy Paragon (Chicago) 2 gallon pails, hole saw a hole in the lid, and melt in a piece of SS screen. Finding a lid that easily goes on and off is the difficult part.
what screen do you use ? I have seen that done as a kit from Beemaid , or you can buy the lid already done , but I want 200 of them and I don't need to buy more expensive things to have laying around for most of the year
I have frame feeders , but I don't use them in the fall , they come out after spring / pollination time .
I'm feeding with 12 liter pail i buy from FWJones. Works well for me but a little bit expensive. I try my own version, but a lot of commercial pails I found wasn't very efficient when you open and closed them many times. When a pail is leaking in cold wet october, this is a real mess!
However the older pail I buy from Jones have actually 7 years and are still in good shape. I wash the screen with hot high pressure cleaner, this is the only thing that works well to remove propolis (propane torch works also when you're badly kept in the field).
When I try to make my own, I try to buy this special screen they use and found that it was sold by companies specialized in screening materiels, but the ones i found just sold that by rolls many times to expensives for the few squares feets i was needing.
I also try cover with homemade needle holes but consumption of sirup was very slow (not enough holes!) and they often get plugged with debris or bee plugged them with propolis. When you try to unplugged them one or 2 times with a needle, they get too big and they leaks when upside down. Finally, I don't save so much building my buckets. Initial price was cut buy half but they just stand a few years.
Ben - shoot me a PM if you want the company i buy my screens from.
Roland Diehnelt
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Beesource Beekeeping Forums
1.8M posts
54.7K members
Since 1999
A forum community dedicated to beekeeping, bee owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about breeding, honey production, health, behavior, hives, housing, adopting, care, classifieds, and more!