I have been doing more reading about entrance feeders for my hives. External feeders are something you use to feed sugar water to bees. There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is with entrance feeders or ‘Boardman’ feeders.

There are pros and cons to everything with this new hobby. With the Boardman feeders you just fill up the mason type jar with the liquid and place it upside down on the feeder. It’s a little messy because some of the sugar water leaks out and attracts bees, creating a ‘robbing’ situation, where other bees come in and steal the sugar water. I guess this is a big problem because you don’t know how much your bees are eating. Besides, where do the little robber bees get their little robber masks to yell “This is a stick up! NoBEEdy move!” (I couldn’t help it)

I was replacing the sugar water about every 4 days with Queen Latifa’s family eating more and always running dry by the time I replaced it. Queen Annie was close behind but never running dry within that time frame. Since I moved the feeders, it’s too early to tell if this is an improvement. I know it has cut down on robbing unless these bandit bees are dressing up in disguises to pass off as my bees to travel through the entire hive for the free treat. They might as well fly down the road and get their own! I do have an ant problem now that I didn’t notice before. There’s a ton of them in Queen Latifa’s hive and none in Queen Annie’s. Heck, who knows? The ants could be eating all the sugar water and I’m blaming it on Queen Latifa. Too early to judge.

New location for my external feeder; Inside the hive

Can you believe it has been 56 days since I started this new event? As my Niece would say, apparently, it’s cool to raise bees! I’m finally with the cool crowd! So, I placed a super on my first brood box. A super is just another level for the bees to expand. They should continue to fill this super with more eggs, larvae, pollen and nectar. I still plan to let the bees be bees and allow them to do what they want. If they want to swarm and leave, let them swarm and leave. If they want to stay and just party and have babies, so be it! I’m just happy they are still living!

Got stung the other day. Right on the arm. My fault. I went to change out the external feeders and got one caught under my arm. Sting the arm that feeds you! Funny, I was wearing gloves and I never wear gloves. She got me just above the glove.

The 8 week inspection went well. (See the video) It might be too early to tell but it looks like I may need another super for a brood box, which is good. The more bees to defend the hive the better. It helps them make it through the winter too.

The girls adapted well to the extra box I placed on top! Only thing is today they were flying around a lot. I even got stung for the first time just trying to replace the feeders. I guess we are not dating anymore…Anyway!

It may be time for me to open up the entrances on each hive. I have an entrance reducer which is a piece of wood that plugs the entrance and leave just a small hole.  You are supposed to do that so the bees can defend their hives. When they are just starting out in a new hive, it’s easier to defend a smaller entry. It’s like only having one door where you have to check ID’s. If you don’t have ID, ya can’t get in! Is that why I got stung?

After some time you need to open the entrance so the bees have an easier time coming and going. Starting to look like Detroit rush hour. Guess I would be mad too if had to fly around with pollen on MY legs waiting for some malcontent ID checking bee to check me in!