BethsBees · Ontario, CA · Beginners · Sep 20, 2026
Bees keep drowning in my hive-top feeder — floats, ladders, straw, or is it just the wrong feeder design?
Ontario, second year, three hives on 2:1 for the last two weeks. I'm using the 4-litre hive-top trough feeders that sit under the outer cover, and every single refill there are fifty to a hundred dead bees floating in the syrup. I put a strip of wood in as a float and it barely helped; they cling to the edges and slide in anyway.
I've fed about 12 litres per hive so far and want them at weight by early October, so I'm not stopping, but this feels wasteful and slightly cruel. Things I've seen suggested: straw, wine corks, plastic canvas mesh, bubble wrap, or switching to a round rapid feeder with the cup, or an inverted pail feeder.
What do you actually use, and does a syrup full of dead bees go off faster? It smells a little different by day three.
#feeders#fall-feeding#syrup#drowning-bees
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4 replies
LavenderSophie · Sep 20, 2026
I gave up on open troughs years ago for exactly this reason and switched to round rapid feeders: the bees climb up inside a central cup under a clear cap and lick from a narrow ring, so they can't fall into the reservoir. A handful of dead bees per fill is normal; fifty to a hundred is the feeder's fault. If you keep the troughs, a raft of thin wood strips cut to fit the whole surface works far better than one stick, and plastic canvas gives them footing. Straw goes mouldy within days. And yes, dead bees make syrup ferment faster — dump anything that smells.
BallaratBees · Sep 20, 2026
Spring feeding 1:1 here in Ballarat for build-up and I use in-hive frame feeders with a plastic mesh ladder stapled down each side and a float; almost no drownings once the ladder is in. For an open trough the bubble-wrap trick genuinely works, bubble side up, cut to the exact surface size so bees can't slip round the edge. Whatever you use, don't let syrup sit more than a few days in warm weather.
AbejaMiguel · Sep 21, 2026
Inverted pail feeder, the simplest thing in Jalisco: a 10-litre pail with six or eight tiny holes in the lid, turned over on the inner cover hole inside an empty box. The vacuum holds the syrup, the bees lick the holes, nobody drowns, ever. One warning for your climate: on cold nights the air in the pail contracts and expands, and they can drip. Fill them full and put them on when it's warm.
TopBarDavid · Sep 21, 2026
Rainy season in Enugu so my top-bar colonies are getting fed inside too, and the same rule applies whatever the box: give them a surface, not a pool. A shallow tray with a heap of twigs or a piece of old comb floating in it works fine for me, and I never make the syrup more than a finger deep. Feeding always inside the hive — an open feeder outside here would start a robbing war in an hour.