Jen. I open feed because I am cheap and lazy. Two feeder stands can take care of dozens of hives, so i do not have to open every hive every time I need to refill the feeders. I dont have to go buy, or build 20 or 50 feeders, one for each hive. I have a few hive top feeders and a few Boardman feeders to use if I need to feed a single colony rather than all of them.
In your situation.. one or two hives, I doubt you would have to worry greatly about filling a neighbors honey super with sugar syrup.
Jen, you live in a city, I can assume from your post that your city frowns on keeping bees within the city limits?
Are you relatively certain that no one else has a secret hive in their yard?
I guess for you it all depends on the circumstances. Knowing what little I do of your situation, I would not fear putting a jar of syrup out near where I could sit and watch the bees feeding. They will probably not need it after early spring once people start their flower gardens. I would think having bees in the city would be somewhat advantageous in that people will water their flowers and potted plants so there will not really be a dearth. A single quart or half gallon jar is not going to contribute large amounts of syrup to a neighbors honey supers, even if he decides to plop them on at the FIRST signs of warmer weather.
Risks? A lot of bees will gather about the feeder, someone may see it? If done before spring flow, little or no risk of contaminating someone elses super. Summer and fall risks? Depends on if there are other secret beeks nearby. I would not hesitate to feed late fall when supers SHOULD have been removed, leaving time for them to dehydrate and cap the syrup so they are prepared for winter.. "IF" they need it. If the hive is packed nicely full of honey then there isnt much advantage to feeding late.
The purpose of this thread was to see what people fed and when, but the disagreement did make me think a bit more about open feeding, and slightly modified how I think, with the exception of early spring feeding for build up.
The hives will probably be pretty light, if not empty. A honey super on top would collect little if anything while the bees began ramping up production. I want to do splits by early to mid May, so feeding before the flow will give my hives a boost to production.
So, if possible, can we return to the threads intent?
Spring feeding for buildup
If you use an internal feeder to do that.. GREAT.. Tell me about it please? So how do you feed pollen and pollen Sub? I have seen buckets on their sides, jars set on their sides. Even cookie pans filled and simply set out for the bees to find..
