My bees do not like Hivemaker thymolated syrup!

[dickbowyer]

Made up heavy syrup and fed to bees over weekend. Forgot to add Hivemakers thymol solution to one of the feeders and that hive taken nearly all the syrup whilst the rest are still rather reluctant to touch theirs and some dead bees floating. I am using 5ml solution per gallon. Is this unusual?

 

[Alabamaeee]

Some thoughts

Maybe that hive doesn't need it at the moment.

Possibly they don't known it's there.

The feeder holes are blocked up!

They hate Thymol

 

[drstitson]

as per above but also:

sick bees (esp. nosema).

 

[johnandyrob]

Bees some times don't recognize thmolated sugar syrup as food. You could try spraying a little onto the bees they then have to clean it of each other then recognizing it as food.

 

[Jeff Buzz]

I have had some hives just woof it down and some that have hardly touched it for about a week but just starting to take it in.

 

[goodbobby]

Mine took their time last year but after a couple of weeks took it down ok.

 

[Teemore]

The majority of my colonies will take down 2.5-3L of thymolated syrup in about 4 hours at present and that is alongside varroa treatment with ApiLife Var. A few colonies wouldn't take that amount down in the course of three or four days. The slower feeders are the ones who have maintained their own stores in the BB over the summer. I do note that this past week all my colonies have been quicker to take down feed.
When you first feed bees with any sort of syrup, it can be useful to tricke some of the syrup through the feed hole onto the tops of the frames so that the bees know the syrup is there - with rapid feeders I make sure to trickle the syrup down the neck of thefeeder that the bees climb to access the food. They will follow the food trail to its source.
As others have noted, disease could also be a reason for them not eating the syrup...

 

[For want of a better word]

2:1 in a contact feeder totally ignored... same hive with a rapid feeder very slow BUT in an Ashforth.... feeding frenzy !
Being treated with Apiguard... very low drop !
Double brood std National / Newzealand linguista...... 60kg honey producer... so needs 20kg of sugar syrup.