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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Question about feeder arrangement
  • Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 16:34:07 -0400

2 weeks ago the bees in one of my hives were unusually defensive. I was stung
multiple times before I had even removed the telescoping cover. But since I
had just extracted honey from the adjoining hive, I assumed that bees were
simply agitated by the smell of honey in the air. Rather than punch my luck,
I closed up the hive without inspecting.

I returned to the hive one week later to finish the aborted inspection. Again
the bees were angry, overly defensive, bouncing off of me, stinging through
my gloves and jeans. But on balance I was better protected so I persisted.
The bottom brood box had no brood, no honey, no nectar and no pollen. The
upper brood box had only small amounts of everything. So I dropped the upper
box to the bottom position and added a honey super with 3 partly filled
frames of capped honey and nectar that I had frozen earlier + an in-hive
feeder filled with light syrup. See picture below.

JPEG image



Today, I refilled the feeder. Thankfully, the bees were back to their usual
agreeable selves.

My question for all of you experienced beekeepers - what problems, if any, am
I creating with the feeder box of honey frames coupled with the tank feeder?
Everything is sitting above the inner cover. Will the bees try to fill the
void in the feeder box with free form comb? My hope is that they will move
the honey out of the feeder box frames into their bellies or into comb in the
brood boxes. Is that likely? 4 days in, it doesn't look like they are headed
in that direction.

I appreciate all thoughts, comments, and advice.

-John Rintoul




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