Joined
·
1,720 Posts
Wow, what a terrible idea in that video. Its a bad idea made even worse by placing the hose right in front of the hives. He may as well put up a flshing billboard that says "I've got lots of stuff, please come and rob my unsecured house." Another big problem with the hose is it going to leak all night long, and if the bees find a nectar source they like better it is still going to run syrup and let it drip onto the ground. Did you read the comments below the video, the person who made the video only uses it for 1:1 feeding, and it has to be constantly monitored.
I suggest you direct your effort towards ant proofing your hive stands and then using hive top feeders. This has the added advantage of (at the risk being pedantic and stating the obvious) keeping the ants out of your hives. You can track how much syrup the hive is actually using, and you feed only the hives that need it, keeping sugar syrup from ending up in honey supers.
If you want to open feed there are better, and much easier, ways than using a soaker hose, including ant proof ways. Ways that don't have to be monitored all day long and then require a person to come and shut if off at night.
A summer sized healthy apis mellifera colony will store up to 5kg of 2:1 sugar syrup in a 24 hour period using a hive top feeder. A spring time hive will store less, and that will depend on the colony strength. In a hive top feeder the bees can continue to store syrup at night time, where as in open feeding they do not fly at night. Your local weather report will give you your local sunrise and sunset times, you can figure put the proportion of a day the bees can work and multiply that by 5kg to get a storage rate. 2:1 sugar syrup has a density of 1.3kg/l. A soaker hose label should indicate the flow rate. That should be all of the information you need to do the math and figure out what you need to make a prototype.
You scoffed in advance at people making a suggestion you measure this yourself. If you want to be an inventor then be an inventor. If you want to engineer something then do the engineering. Prototype, measure and observe, calculate your results, make refinements, build a second improved prototype, repeat the refinement process. You offered the excuse that you cant measure because you have apis cerena and want apis mellifera data, but can you even answer your own questions for apis cerena?
I suggest you direct your effort towards ant proofing your hive stands and then using hive top feeders. This has the added advantage of (at the risk being pedantic and stating the obvious) keeping the ants out of your hives. You can track how much syrup the hive is actually using, and you feed only the hives that need it, keeping sugar syrup from ending up in honey supers.
If you want to open feed there are better, and much easier, ways than using a soaker hose, including ant proof ways. Ways that don't have to be monitored all day long and then require a person to come and shut if off at night.
A summer sized healthy apis mellifera colony will store up to 5kg of 2:1 sugar syrup in a 24 hour period using a hive top feeder. A spring time hive will store less, and that will depend on the colony strength. In a hive top feeder the bees can continue to store syrup at night time, where as in open feeding they do not fly at night. Your local weather report will give you your local sunrise and sunset times, you can figure put the proportion of a day the bees can work and multiply that by 5kg to get a storage rate. 2:1 sugar syrup has a density of 1.3kg/l. A soaker hose label should indicate the flow rate. That should be all of the information you need to do the math and figure out what you need to make a prototype.
You scoffed in advance at people making a suggestion you measure this yourself. If you want to be an inventor then be an inventor. If you want to engineer something then do the engineering. Prototype, measure and observe, calculate your results, make refinements, build a second improved prototype, repeat the refinement process. You offered the excuse that you cant measure because you have apis cerena and want apis mellifera data, but can you even answer your own questions for apis cerena?
