re: "My experience is that cold and syrup are incompatible..."

Interesting. Are you making a fair comparison to candy? That is, are you putting the syrup centered above the cluster? Division board feeders won't do it. (Or at least, I could never get them to work.) I have had more luck with hive-top feeders, especially the expedient feeders made out of a plastic angelfood cake pan and a large plastic cup or cut-off water bottle. They sit right over the center hole of the inner cover and seem to benefit from the rising warm air from the cluster. I often see a few bees crawling around inside the bottle even in the dead of winter - well below clustering temperature.

In other words, is the apparent difference in success between candy and syrup one of material or placement?

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I wanted to include a reference to the BeeCulture article that first described the expedient feeders but I can't remember what issue or even what year it was from. There's a picture of one (empty) at http://medinabeekeepers.com/images/Homemade_hivetop_feeder.jpg

Mike Rossander



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