> If you put a tad of Honey B Healthy in your barrels of syrup I can almost 
> guaruntee they will slurp it up fast...at least that has been my 
> experience..All they need is flying temps.

We normally do use an attractant, and had done so in that case, as well.  We 
typically use either an broken brood comb or scrapings and they work well. 
In this case, the weather was below clustering temps.

I have not added HBH, but have no reason to think it is more powerful than a 
brood comb with some honey in it or other scent, although some beekeepers 
swear by it or home made recipes that approximate HBH.

Personally, I am very reluctant to use proprietary formulas that could get 
into the honey, or products which present themselves as panaceas  This seems 
to be both.  The quick searches I did turned up suggestions that it contains 
sodium lauryl sulfate, etc. and the ingredients are secret.  Maybe not, 
after all, I am told that not everything I read on the 'net is true.

As for bees piling up in open feeders, after feeding hundreds of thousands 
of pounds of syrup in various open feeders and watching others do so, we 
have concluded that the biggest cause of piling up is either insufficient 
surface area in the feeders for the number of hives being served or a float 
that is insufficiently dense to prevent bees getting wetted in the feed.  An 
attractant will exacerbate that problem by bringing more bees.

Not having used HBH, I cannot say if this applies here, but I would suspect 
it must.  Too small a feeding area can also result in fighting and robbing 
occurring -- as bees stake out territory and defend the feeder or sections 
of it -- rather than a a peaceful tapering off as the feed runs out and gets 
more difficult to obtain through the straw mat.

We were also just now disusing here how hive behaviour differs over a season 
and how hives with sufficient stores and no pressing needs due to feed 
shortage, heavy brood rearing or a build-up of feces can "settle" down and 
show little interest in feed offered outside the hive regardless of what 
attractant is added.

In the case I describe, I had tried an attractant.  We seldom, if ever, had 
problems with bees emptying feeders, other than when we got three inches of 
rain on top of the feed, but the late fall weather in this instance hovered 
just below clustering temperature and the bees simply did not show interest 
until roused.  Interestingly, the drench caused them to warm up, break 
cluster, and warm up enough foragers that they went straight to work and 
licked the drum dry, even in what we would not consider flying weather.

These days, at zero to seven degrees C, I see a few bees flying, including 
drones, but no amount of robbing, even though we have some exposed combs 
nearby.  Even when the temps get up to fifteen for an hour or two, I see 
very little interest in them.

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