Hi Lloyd/All Lloyd you mentioned that there are problems with yeasts in sugar syrup feeders and that making the water more alkaline or more ascetic helps. As far as I know the following should be the case. Most yeasts have an optimum growth pH above or below which their growth is pathetic. I know that two common yeasts in bees, Candida apis and apicola both don't grow below a ph of 3.7 - or at least they don't grow well. Likewise the same yeast does not grow well at a ph in excess of 8.00. They do however grow at these ph, just slower. AS they grow they can sometimes depending on the yeast change the ph to suit themselves. Hence if one is to acidify or alkalinise a sugar solution to stop growth using a buffer would be good. I would go for a citrate or acetate buffer as both of these acids should be of nutritional use to the bees. The danger with droppin the ph of a sugar solution is that if it is heated and the ph is below about 4 you get hectic caramelisation and a white sugar solution becomes a dark brown sugar solution - something I am sure the bees would not like. I know my yeast dislike it. I would not alkalinise it though - I remember hearing that honey is naturally acetic - if the bees are not able to change it's ph they are likely to store it as alkaline honey and then the honey will eat away at the wax turning it into soluble soapy stuff that may dissolve into the honey and so on. Alternatively the bees may try for ages to drop the pH of the honey and exhaust their internal supplues of H+ ions giving one woozy bees with alkaline haemolymph (sort of similar to bees taking too many tums). Even one teespoon of NaOH in a large drum of sugar soln would raise the pH to over 9 or 10. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis 6139 South Africa Time = Honey If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!