so today we're finally gonna talk about these rapid round feeders and other open
drinkers and ways to keep your bees from drowning
there was some flawed wrapping around feeders that caused me to have to put a
shim in here with pennies to raise that clear cup above the center cone so the
bees could get out there and look there's one dead bee right there in the
sugar syrup this time of year we tend to feed our bees whether their packages or
a new nucleus colony bees that need to get a good start
so everyone told me this is by the way not new it's not something I discovered
everyone said hey Fred put a sock in it so that's what we did we put a sock over
the center of the rapid round riser column lots of people said to do it I
don't know why I didn't know it before now but really I haven't had much of a
problem until there was a configuration problem with the rapid rounds which
caused me to look for solutions and that's what we're doing today so we have
the sonic and we have cut pieces of sponge put a lot more than this in it
and also look at that center piece had cracked and I had to fix it with some
superglue there's a problem look at the stand off from the bottom there which
leaves a space for your bees to get out and get out into the open free surface
area have you drinker and drown in the syrup this is a horizontal long laying
off hive that we're he's in here and that's because there's a package of bees
in there and they need to be taken care of why because it's gonna rain a lot
during this time of year and if we don't provide extra feed at this time of year
in spring one to one sugar syrup then when the rains come they consume all the
resources that they've brought in and what they're trying to do is build up
their breed so we're gonna help them along but we don't want our bees to
drown so we're gonna show a lot of different options here including what to
do when you open feed and how about when you have an open drink or some people
put marbles in we have something else that I'm going to show you but here it
is the feeder is full to the top that's the other thing if you don't have a sock
or something in there fill these all the way to the top cuts down on the number
of bees to get into the syrup and that end up Drowning but still maybe one is
too many so the socks satisfy that
first I'm going to show you which socks I decided to use some people say oh I
just put my old socks in there we're going to use new ones and these are the
APIs rabbit round feeders are available from several places these came from
Amazon link will be in the video description below they have improved the
material quality that they are making these rapid rounds out of I'm very happy
to say and again they're just sitting here we're going to show you some other
feeders keep these full as much as you possibly can that results in fewer bees
drowning because there's less surface area for them to be pushed off of into
the soup so this is a flow hive to eight frame which is a six frame flow super
compatible and it's got a feeder shim on top we're gonna look inside here and
this is where I put the sock now here's the thing I let this not go
intentionally over the top of the cone because I'm thinking as it leeches the
sugar syrup up in there the bees are gonna feed on the socks Europe rather
than going over the top and getting down in the syrup itself and I can tell you
ahead of time if you don't want to watch this whole thing this science word the
other thing is when your bees build up Berk home on the bottoms of these
feeders leave it there when you wash them out you sanitize your feeders don't
scrape away this wax because the bees like to climb on it and look at this
here we are already there's worker and she has her tongue out and she's getting
her sugar syrup from the sock so she's not climbing over the side and she's not
in jeopardy of drowning but of course we ran this test for a week and we're gonna
come back and look at them these are the socks I decided to get socks are cheap
man these socks are ten boys crew socks I just cut the ankle parts off and left
the foot made by Hanes I'll put a link in the video description for those to
you but they're brand new socks so we want to get all the chemicals out so I
washed them with Dawn dish soap and then we rinsed them until the water ran clear
and then we dry them out why because that helps them work better and
absorbing the sugar syrup up to the edge so you can put them over this cone too
and not let them drape to the middle one of the concerns somebody had when they
saw that I was going to pull him off through to the middle was that it would
leach the syrup out and drip it down inside
to hide I can tell you that did not happen it stops at the edges of the sock
and the beats come up and they just suck the syrup off the sock itself and look
no drowning not one single V in any of the sock
evaluation feeders got in there and drowned of course there's an artistic
shot sunset slow motion sugar syrup on a windy day with a piece coming up and
getting at the sugar syrup without drowning that's the whole point so in
all of the new package installs we put these feeders in and now a few days
later we're gonna come back and look and see what the results are here we go it's
raining now this is the one that had the sock pulled all the way over the center
that some had concerns that would just leech all the syrup out and drip it down
inside but that didn't happen but what's more important is look what the bees did
they only came as far as the sock they don't try to climb over the top of it
and I want you to look at this rapid round feeder which holds a half a gallon
it's drained all the way to the bottom now normally without the sock there the
bees follow the syrup down to the bottom and then they end up crawling out
underneath the clear cup and they end up out in the syrup so with the song they
don't do that so as so many people have said put a sock in it Fred so I'm
telling you and if you get a child-size sock it fits perfectly goes over there
let it go ahead and go right across the middle if you want to and here we go we
did try the sponges and the sponges do leach the sugar syrup right up to the
top but just as with the top without the sponges in it if you let the sugar syrup
get down to the bottom the bees could get out underneath they can still drown
there is surface area there so it's safe to say that the sock is better than
using bits and pieces of sponge although if you have a carousel feeder I highly
recommend that you put Sonic pieces or sponge pieces in those corner fittings
so that your bees don't drown and here's those socks again pre-wash ready to go
the only absolutely zero surface area feeder that we have
is this new one be smart design three season feeder holds a whole gallon for
those who want more than the half gallon that the rapid rounds offer so this one
definitely will not drown your bees now here it is raining today I wanted to
take you out and show you another way that I keep the bees from falling into
open drinkers it is important if you're not giving sugar syrup you always always
want to have fresh water sources out for your bees and we go beyond that we also
put out different salt and mineral mixes for the bees out one teaspoon per quart
so that's just water and this one has Himalayan pink salt this one has one
teaspoon of calcium magnesium one teaspoon Celtic sea salt to the water
quart and then this one seems to be a favorite one teaspoon of calcium
magnesium this is human consumption rated calcium
magnesium - pure water so the most popular out here is one teaspoon
Himalayan pink salt number two is the cal-mag and here of course because it's
raining it's actually preventing this colony from swarming out which they
probably really want to do the problem is the weather is so bad it's overcast
and everything else we don't open it up but here's what I want to show you we
defeat the free surface area of this larger drinker sure we put breaks in
there but the beads would still fall into the water this is nothing but fresh
water for the bees and right now of course it's full of rainwater
these are marine land bio filter balls the same stuff you would use in your
finish tanks so when you put a bunch of them in here what they do is they
actually prevent the direct sunlight from getting through all of the water so
it provides some shade which cuts down on the algae that grows and if your bees
fall in they can clamor all over the balls and they don't get stuck so that's
just another bonus some people like to put marbles and things like that in
their drinkers I think the bio balls which are by the way very cheap sitting
in there are a much better way to control the bees and let them drink
without falling in and it gives them something get their footing on so they
can I'm back out this of course is just a
landing board shown that the bees are venting out because it's a nice warm day
even though it's rainy and they're just moving air out of this colony so I
thought you probably want to see some bees slow motion of course
and this is a colony bees that came through winter so they're doing pretty
darn good we only lost one colony bees through the winter and very happy to say
and now within the next couple of days if the weather will just give us a break
we're going to do a bunch of splits sorry our back of the drinkers if you
want to see these are normally entry feeders but I don't use entry feeders I
do set them out as mineral water sources for the bees and then we just on a
continuing basis like to see what they're going for the most so right now
pink Himalayan salt one teaspoon per quart and of course our bioballs
really close so you can see these bees just plastic balls that help you get the
footing and like I said they're dirt cheap I think it's like two or three
dollars for a whole box of them so we'll put a link to those you can put those in
bird feeders anything you want for waterers bird baths any place where your
bees are likely to drowned go ahead and put biofilter balls in there and if you
need a large capacity back to the bee smart design species and drinker fits
right over the hole sit snug provide some venting thanks for watching
don't drown drown your bees
you