Top feeder on the beehive. Make a top feeder box. Too easy

hello everyone and welcome to my Channel or welcome back to my Channel today we're going to be talking about top feeders uh why I chose the top feeder that I did and how to build how I am building a top feeder box for mine now top feeder box is just something that sits up on top of the Beehive where you can put your top feeder in there this is the top feeder that I chose to use it is easy it is simple you take the lid off the Beehive it's sitting right there on top you pull the lid off you put whatever feed you want in there put the lid back on it put the lid back on the hive and you're done it's just that simple now last year I tried using a frame feeder this is a frame feeder I did not like it uh because you have to get into the hive body every time you have to feed every time you have to feed you have to open up the Beehive and there are just some days where I don't have 30 to 45 minutes to an hour to open up a beehive just to put feed on the bees uh so and every time you did it you had to sued up get your smoker lit all that kind of stuff this I can come out here have them both fed both my hives fed and be back on the road in 10 minutes never even break a suit out because all you do is pull the top box off pull the lid off this and pour it in there that's the reason I chose a top feeder over a high feeder now you need to you can decide which one's best for you top feeder's best for me high feeder no thank you the top feeder a little plastic piece in it I bought this top feeder off Amazon a two pack for like $15 it's cheap it's it's just that easy you pour your sugar water I think you can even I haven't tried it yet but I'm pretty sure you can dry feed in there if you want to put pollen in there and um and Feed the Bees pollen out of it I think you could probably even do that too and the lid goes right on top of it and the bees can't get out I'll open this up and there'll be bees in there that's been in there they'll be the sugar that's left over from the sugar water this thing is fantastic I love it I recommend it but do your own research figure it out this is just what I do now one thing about this this feeder that little part right there sticks out the bottom so so you have to cut a hole in your top board to get it to work all I did was take my top board put a uni bit in there just wallowed out a big old hole and this just sits right on top of it just like that just flush with the lid that's it it's that easy I've seen people be like well I don't know how that works because it won't fit in my hole this right here just Waller it out it sits over the top of it and seals the holes hole up in the top and the bees can't get up in your top feed box uh now the feed box that I'm making you can also use a honey super I don't want to use up a honey super equipment's not equipment's not cheap and I don't want to have to use a honey super to uh do this I'm making a cheap little box just like this to sit right on top of the Beehive now one thing you have to remember when you're doing this is that is that hole in the top right there that is your main ventilation for your hive so when you take that feeder and put it in that hole you're taken away from your bees ventilation so you have to fix that so when you're making your hive body I mean your your frame feeder drill some holes in the side I use some geoc cloth like the flower bed stuffed cloth that goes under flower beds that's there for 20 years when you get ready to take that flower bed out I just use some of that glued it on there with the fabric glue that my wife uses uh well it's not really fabric glue she uses it to uh to uh sew Hardware onto her bags and stuff that she makes so it's got to be pretty durable just I need to get it back home before she misses it anyway so uh but this is how I did it I just built this let me show you what I did how it goes together um need to measure your hive I don't know if hives are always the same exact width Dimensions height I don't know whether it depends on manufacturer but my two front my front and my backboard are 16 and a qu this one and this one are 16 and a quarter and you take the width of this and the width of the yeah the the width of this the width of this thickness width whatever you want to call it thickness of this one thickness of this one and subtract it from the length of your beehive and on mine came up to 18 and an eth 18 and a e 18 and a e that way and 16 and 1/4 that way now since it's just a metal I mean a uh wooden frame what I did at that point is I didn't want it to be wobbly every time I picked it up every time I had to pull it off the hive so I made a couple of little triangles to go in the corners just to give it a little bit of strength that's it it's just that simple it is that easy four little holes and I didn't even from what I understand I have not seen this I haven't experienced it yet but from what I understand if you make the ventilation holes too big for the bees and they don't and they're getting too much ventilation they'll propolis it they'll close it up as much as they want to wherever they feel like they need it wherever however much ventilation they need so making this hole I just had a bit that big that's it I think you could use any size bit you want you know within reason so um I had I left my uni bit my big uni bit the one that's this big around at the house and that's the only reason I didn't use that one so I don't even know what size hole it is I'm not even going to go look because it doesn't matter as long as you got a pretty good size hole in there and cover it with something because you don't want bees getting in your top box because if they get in this top box you'll have all kinds of wonky comb going on in here your feeder will be all covered up with with comb and everything so you need to keep your bees out of here on the top cover the one I've already done is already on a hive over there uh all I did is poke a hole here hole here hole there hole there and covered it with the same mesh so that's on top got to remember this is your ventilation once you put a top feeder in there that ventilation is gone now they do sale top feeders that already are in boxes they're like 4 gallon top feeders uh this one is like a quarter uh I mean a quart quarter a quart top feeder uh so I can fit a quart in there the bees go through it in a week I put another quart in there when to come out here on the weekends that easy um that's all there is to it how's it fit on the hive all right so this is your hive body say this is the top of the box you might have a honey super on top I don't know uh but this is going to be the top of the hive take this board with the four ventilation holes in it uh and put it on the top top feeder sits on there just like that this board this Feer box sits on there just like that and then your lid your telescoping lid sits on here just like that it's just truly that easy one thing I will recommend I've seen other people using different uh kind of Lids um this is a telescoping lid so it overlaps the top of the highve by about that much uh when it's on there um so I would recommend that if you're not using one of these I've seen people using the uh the flat tops with no lip on it I would recommend that if you're doing that if you're using one of those that you put a little bit of something over the top of that hole whether it's a little piece of metal flashing a little bit piece of wood something so when water's running down the hive it doesn't get in that get in the hole the ventilation hole and my only recommendation so that's how I do it that's how I did it and I can't say that's how I do it because this is the first one I ever did now don't do like me my first one I did when I was making this one the first one I did actually took my measurements off the bottom board now we know that the bottom board is what about an inch and a half longer than the than the actual uh Hive itself right cuz it's got the landing so when I got over there to put it on the hive I was like oh come on so I had to come over here and adjust the measurements on it wasn't that big of a deal other than the fact it just aggravated me so that's it hope yall enjoyed this video this is a simple way to do it very inexpensive way to do it I think I've got $10 in this box right now so cheap inexpensive but you can buy these online people do make these uh so you can if you don't have the the tools or the means to do it uh then um you can buy one anyway all right thanks for watching and we'll see you y on the next one

Channel: Dees Bees Honeybee Farm

Views: 283

Keywords: beekeeping, beehive, top feeder, bee, honey bees, honey

Id: 9bMqF_BVTxY

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2024