I've been given several one gallon, food-grade, plastic buckets with lids
that seal to feed 1:1 sugar water in my hives this spring.  My original
thought was to make a few small holes in the lids, and invert the filled
buckets on the top bars (one or two per hive), covering the buckets with an
empty super, inner cover, and telescoping cover.  Some of my reading,
however, seems to suggest inverting the bucket on top of the inner cover,
centering the holes in the bucket lid to flow through the slot in the center
of the inner cover.  Is it really essential to maintain "bee space" between
the top bars and the bucket lid during the few weeks I would be feeding this
spring?  Feeding through the inner cover slot would limit me to one gallon
per hive per feeding, but placing the inverted buckets directly on the top
bars would allow two gallons per feeding (which would be a real advantage
for me because my hives are too far away to work more than once a week and
my new colonies last spring often emptied one gallon division board feeders
in less than a week).
 
As I've thought about this, I've begun to wonder why I couldn't simply leave
the buckets of sugar water open and upright in an empty top super -- again
either above or below the inner cover -- and loosely attach a piece of
cotton sheeting across the top, letting the center of the cloth sag to the
inside bottom of the bucket.  The sheeting would absorb the sugar water like
a wick, and allow the bees to feed without drowning.  I'm also wondering why
I couldn't use this same "internal bucket" system to provide fresh water to
my hives, during and after the spring feeding.  Will this work, or am I
missing something important?  (from Rog Flanders, a new hobbyist in SE
Nebraska, with two overwintered  hives and four new colonies arriving in
mid-April)