Why are my bees drowning?

[Beefriendly]

I had this occur with the round rapid feeder. By making the plastic surface of the cone rough - by using coarse sandpaper, the bees could retreat faster from the rising tide. Sometimes they can't get a good grip on smooth plastic.

The central cone in all the ones I own have a series of concentric lines etched into them for the bees to grip. You must have been unfortunate in the choice of your supplier if they were smooth.

 

[Compost Kid]

I use them. It is honestly the filling that does it, the bee is stupid enough not to move when you are filling it, so they are suddenly under the syrup, often they have a little air bubble around them and they can get out again but if lots of bees are in there they can't get out before they drown. I can't believe they are 'falling' in . You are right about the way the cup fits, if fits on three little right angle pieces which stops it going all the way to the bottom and from moving from side to side. There is no need to remove the cup when filling. You just need to fill very very slowly. In the scheme of things a few tens of drowned bees will hardly deplete the hive. But I do understand it is a bit destressing.
E

Thanks Enrico. Yeah it’s just a bit sad. I’ll see what everything is like tomorrow and hope they’ve taken down the syrup like they were doing, rather than drowning in it.

 

[Compost Kid]

Thanks everyone. Hopefully it’s just a blip. I lost my bees last winter so I’m extra anxious this year. Thanks for all your suggestions.

 

[alfazer]

This is the same kind of feeder that I'm using. Courty, what you describe is exactly what I'm getting. I'm trying to pour really slowly, but they don't move up in time. With the other hives that have plenty of syrup left but drowned bees, I don't know whether to change the syrup (it doesn't look mouldy, just cold) and give them new or just fish out the dead bodies. There were probably about twenty bodies in the hive with the most fatalities.

I'm feeding 5 hives. Three of them have the round rapid feeders, one has a homemade miller type and one is a square rapid feeder that looks exactly like the one in your picture.

Tonight I topped them up and the square one like yours had a full circle of dead bees in it. This is the first year I've used it and I think the bee space looks too big so the bees slip into the syrup too easily and have no purchase on anything to climb back out. Also you have to be really careful when removing the top lid. The inner cone can stick to the underside of the top lid if there's any moisture or syrup residue. The cone lifts up with the lid and I get bees escaping.

I don't think I'll use this feeder again next year.

 

[stevebrowning]

Hi, I'm having a problem with bees drowning in the feeder. Everything has been going well up to this week, I'm feeding thick syrup every three or four days to keep them topped up and they've been taking this down nicely. But I've just been out to feed again today and out of my three hives, one had lots of syrup left and a lot of drowned been in the dome cap. The other had lots of syrup left and only about six drowned bees. The last one had taken all the syrup that I gave them on Sunday (six pints of water mixed with twelve pounds of sugar shared between three hives) and although there were no drowned bees, the cap was full of bees making filling up the feeder impossible without some of them falling in, no matter how slowly I poured. It's quite depressing seeing all these drowned bodies, am I doing anything wrong? I'm using the normal, rectangular box style feeders which up to this week have been feeding them without a problem. None of the hives are starving, they all have stores and when I checked on Sunday were filling up their brood boxes with the syrup. Any advice would be great, thank you.

Take the cup out and put straw on the syrup, you'll get none drown and the syrup taken quicker.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It's not a good idea. In most cases as soon as you remove the original feeder you will have bees pouring up and into, what was, a bee-free super with a feeder.
Now you have to remove the bees or leave them to die before sealing up.

Slide a piece of plastic crown board under the feeder and remove when new feeder is in place

 

[Beefriendly]

Be careful to not overfeed them at this time of year.
The queen needs room to lay eggs for the crucial long-lived winter bees.
Varroa treatments are more important IMHO.
Won't be feeding mine for a few weeks yet.

 

[Beefriendly]

Slide a piece of plastic crown board under the feeder and remove when new feeder is in place

Now that's a good idea...

 

[Millet]

These things are really quite cheap and rather than fill them so slowly to avoid drowning bees that wasps get the scent it is better to have two for each hive and take the empty one out and replace with a full one. It's easier and much, much quicker to use a spare feeder.

Try it and see what happens..

 

[ShinySideUp]

It's not a good idea. In most cases as soon as you remove the original feeder you will have bees pouring up and into, what was, a bee-free super with a feeder.
Now you have to remove the bees or leave them to die before sealing up.

I have a crown board with two holes, one of which is used for the feeder access, the other is to allow the bees to get in and out of the adjacent space.

 

[ShinySideUp]

I had this occur with the round rapid feeder. By making the plastic surface of the cone rough - by using coarse sandpaper, the bees could retreat faster from the rising tide. Sometimes they can't get a good grip on smooth plastic.

The round, 4 pint feeder does have serrations on the cone. They are quite shallow but fine for bees.

 

[ShinySideUp]

Try it and see what happens..

I do it all the time and have no problems at all.

 

[Compost Kid]

I'm feeding 5 hives. Three of them have the round rapid feeders, one has a homemade miller type and one is a square rapid feeder that looks exactly like the one in your picture.

Tonight I topped them up and the square one like yours had a full circle of dead bees in it. This is the first year I've used it and I think the bee space looks too big so the bees slip into the syrup too easily and have no purchase on anything to climb back out. Also you have to be really careful when removing the top lid. The inner cone can stick to the underside of the top lid if there's any moisture or syrup residue. The cone lifts up with the lid and I get bees escaping.

I don't think I'll use this feeder again next year.

That’s really interesting to hear, thank you. I think I might try the round rapid feeders instead and in the meantime removing the cup and using straw sounds a good idea. Thank you.

 

[Compost Kid]

Take the cup out and put straw on the syrup, you'll get none drown and the syrup taken quicker.

This sounds like a great idea, I’ll give it a go. Thanks.

 

[Swarm]

Remove the cup and you will have a feeder full of bees. In the grand scheme of things, these losses are not worth thinking about, it's just a few bees.

 

[Courty]

A few thoughts on the comments so far....as a newbie the different ways of doing things is quite bewildering at times. I’ve run some of the suggestions through my mind and it seems nearly every solution creates further challenges.
The idea of sliding plastic under the feeder to take it off may damage bees as you do it, and you then end up with a lot of bees in a feeder that you need to get out of it. Mine certainly don’t like being shaken off the feeders, that was my first sting!
Opening another crown board hole is an option on my hive but I don’t want the empty super I use as an eke space full of bees, I prefer them contained in the brood box. The feeders under discussion are designed to contain the bees.
Also, the extra hole will affect the atmosphere of the broodbox to some extent, which I think is important. My empty super box is a large space.
Unfortunately due to my working hours I can’t always get to the hive in the evening so I have the run the risk of attracting wasps. The bees seem to be keeping them out now, the wasps tend to attack stragglers on the ground outside the hive.
It also seems inevitable that sometimes our interventions results in bee casualties, such as feeders that drown them, or crushed bees when replacing boards, boxes and frames, no matter how careful we are. I think the best attitude is to accept some collateral loses whilst doing our best to be careful.

Courty

 

[gbee]

I had a few drowners when I started using mine but they seemed to get used to it. Occasionally see a few swimmers on their backs but they seem to manage to right themselves either using the cone or the cup wall itself - don’t know if size of bee makes a difference to this. The ribbed cone should be grippy enough. What do you wash the feeder with? I would guess some cleaning solutions could leave a slick residue reducing grip.

 

[Courty]

I’ve only washed it once because they didn’t use it for the first week and it went mouldy. I just used hot water. It’s now got a few bits from the twig I used to fish some out but I doubt they will be harmful. I filled it again today just as it got to the bottom. Two bees looked dead under the cup, there was one dead one and three went under the syrup yesterday so maybe two crawled out again, they did have bubbles round them as mentioned above.
It’s a good job my local sells beer in pint glasses rather than in a big vat with sloped sides!

Courty

 

[Compost Kid]

It’s a good job my local sells beer in pint glasses rather than in a big vat with sloped sides!

Courty

Hahaha, yes it is a good job!!

I think your comments regarding the inevitability of bee casualties is probably very good advice. It's the same with all livestock farming I guess. I haven't been able to check them today as it's been milling it down, it will be interesting to see what they've done with the feeder tomorrow.

 

[thedozzer]

Sorry I know this is about a different style of feeder, but as a new Beek just like the OP i was disheartened to see so many bees drowned in the Poly Miller Feeder we got from Maisemore the first time we used it. in the end we put bits of fine rigid garden mesh in each slot the bees use to give them extra grip, not had a single bee drown since.
It does make you wonder if the people making this stuff care, as it was obvious using a vernier calliper that the gap was bigger than one bee space so they could only grip one side of the wall that was quite smooth, not impressed.