Be careful with plastic feeder buckets!

 I get used frosting and fruit filling buckets from my local bakery  They are nearly identical in appearance to the Mannlake feeder buckets- I just hade to drill or punch my own holes in the lid to use as a feeder bucket.

They work fine for the initial use, but it only takes a <tiny> amount of propolis on the lip of the bucket, or in the seal-ring area, and then they leak steadily.  Unless the hive is strong enough to feed off of and clean up the steady drip, you have a real mess, and robbing galore as the syrup dribbles out the enterance. I had a leaking plastic feeder bucket kill one of my strongest hives last winter before I realized it was leaking and soaking the cluster.
Has anyone else had similar problems with other plastic buckets?
Still, Bakery buckets are the best I've found for storing my honey crop.  Vanilla frosting, cream and fruit donut fillings leave little or no fragrance behind once the buckets are washed up, and the smaller buckets are much easier for me to handle- I can barely lift and lug  five gallon size bucket! I'd much rather tote two small buckets, and not torque up my back!
As a hobbiest, I have found quart size canning jars the best solution.  They are free or nearly  for the asking at estate sales, garage sales, and from neighbors, who are usually eager to empty their cellars.  ( I have tried to get gallon size jars, but they are in great demand in my area.  Most restaurants, if they have any extras, charge a dollar for them, because so many people want them for craft projects.  Replacing lids once they rust out or go missing is almost impossible too.)  I can fill up a box full of quarts, put on lids with holes punched in them, and then place as many as I want over the top bars, or on top of a queen excluder.  An empty body or super surrounds them, and seals everything up tight.

I use NEW quart and pint size mason style jars to package my honey, so I always keep a bag of standard lids around to replace ones that get mangled, propolized, or lost.  These same lids work great as feeder lids- better than the ring lids, in fact.  Any returned or donated jars, chipped jars, or recycled jars that aren't perfect and shiny go into my box of feeder jars, so  I always have plenty!  I may have to handle more jars, but the bees seem to like the increased feeding area, and I only have to remove the empty jars and replace them, so the feeding is constant.  Also, if one breaks or develops a leak, I only lose one quart of syrup- not a gallon or more!



I realize that on a larger scale, this won't work, but for a small number of hives, it works nicely!

Ellen in Michigan



  James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> commented on feeders:

The plastic bucket type feeders sold by Mann Lake (and others) work
great, are easy to sterilize, and are stackable. One can buy a 1 Gallon
($4.25 each) and a 3.1 Gallon size $6.95 ea).
See them here:

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalog/page28.htm

They can sit directly on the frames or on the inner cover. Store them for winter
in the basement, as exposure to extreme cold can make the lid rims brittle over
time (it would be nice to see a heavier-gauge plastic used).





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