# Anyone ever use this Mann Lake top feeder?



## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Has anyone ever used this Mann Lake top feeder? Pro's or con's?

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=page39#!productInfo/2/


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I have three. The only problem with them is that the bees seem to quit collecting from them earlier than internal types. It's not a huge difference. I have no major complaints.


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

I use them but only have two,. for my 1 - 4 hives . They are good for getting the bees to take *a lot *of syrup in a short period of time, so I use them in the fall for 2-1 syrup. They are easy to use because you can refill them without facing the bees. 

Cons: Sometimes the wire cloth isn't flush in places with the plastic bin, and will have to be sealed off.
When taking the feeders off, sometimes there are a lot of bees under the feeder that have a difficult 
time finding their way out in a short time no matter how much smoke. > Sometimes, especially in the 
spring/early summer, they will build comb under the feeder.


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## beehonest (Nov 3, 2011)

I have a few of them they work great. As Solomon said they do stop feeding earlier on them and the bees build burr comb in them. But what feeder is perfect?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

These are fine for summer/fall/winter feeding. You will want it off before spring. If it is on during a nectar flow your bees will fill the underside with comb/honey....and it will be connected to the frames below. Removing it then can be disasterous.


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## lazy shooter (Jun 3, 2011)

I have three of these feeders. I had a lot of bees drowning in the feeders. They worked OK for me in the summer. I quit using them due to the drowning. When I filled the feeders, every four or five days, there would be 30 to 50 dead bees. I don't know if this is significant, but it was more than I was willing to lose. I went to oft discussed ziploc baggies.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

If you have access to a table saw, a good feeder is the Miller design under Build It Yourself on the Home Page. No bridge comb, few drownings, bees access into cold temps, can fill without suiting up, holds a gallon of syrup on each side. Very good feeder.

Can remove the center top screen in the winter and as long as you have bee space above it, you can feed sugar. Also thought of pouring fondant into it and inverting it and palcing it on a ive for winter feeding.

Need to seal the wood to wood interfaces with silicone or PL300, so it doesn't leak. Also can wax/seal all interior seams and surfaces.

I use 2x4 materials for the perimeter and make simple corners. Screw min of 1/2 plywood over the bottom. Plywood is same dimensions as your supers. Glue and screw the corners

Only negative is that there is some difficulty with spillage if you have it more than half full when you want to take it off to inspect the hive.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

The Mann Lake feeder _is_ a Miller type feeder.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Agree, but not near the feeder from my experience and observation of the Mann Lake. 

Also recommend using window screen for the V bee ladders down to the syrup as seems to give bees better footing and less drowning.


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## RiodeLobo (Oct 11, 2010)

Is the Mann Lake 8 frame feeder 14 inches wide?


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Run 10 frame deeps, so if you're asking about the Mann Lake 8, I don't know.

Can readily build the wood one to your hive dimensions, and bees like the wood much better


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Here's a pic from top and bottom.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

I had four of these MannLake feeders in place this last fall and think I'm going to go back to using the in-hive feeders instead. I was using fructose syrup with some BeePro EO's from mann lake as feed and the little piglets with wings were sucking down two and a half gallons every three days in the fall. These feeders were great for the three hives I had that were doing good but I had one that was really lagging and wouldn't even go through half the feed in a week. These feeders are a pain in the butt to move around when they're full, I always ended up sloshing syrup everywhere. At one point the bees filled the inner part up with bur comb and they typically always seemed to find a way to get past the mesh screen and fill the inside of the feeder up with bees between feeding. As others have said I would usually have a ball of bees stuffed up on the bottom inside of the feeders but slamming the feeder down on top of the hive would usually dislodge 95% of them.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Haven't had great experience with frame feeders and will use them as a last choice. 
-more drowned bees
-hard to get the bees out of the sock bee ladders to fill the feeder
-takes up space of two frames, so lose use of two frames
-have to suit up to fill the feeder
-filling takes up valuable time

My experiences, however each to their own!


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

mgolden,

I appreciate your response but your feeder is the wood version of the Mann Lake feeder. 
I've had wood feeders and I got tired of all the mold that settles in the wood grain. Sure
you can coat it with wax but it wears out after cleaning and you have to re-wax like a surf board.
Too much of a hassle for me. (I'm glad it works for you).


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## rweakley (Jul 2, 2004)

I have 2 of these feeders and the first thing you should do after installing the screen that comes with it is to run a bead of silicon calk all the way around the screen. I did this and have absolutely no drownings from bees getting in from under the screen. Depending on what kind of lid I have on it, sometimes bees and such will sneak in under the lid and they ultimately drown. (that's the lids fault not the feeder) Almost any feeder can have a burr comb problem if you are feeding and they want to make comb and don't have anywhere else to put it. It's only been a problem for me, one time I left it on too long into spring. (my fault not feeders.)


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Sorry for wondering from your original thread, and commenting on Moon's hive feeders. background.

Mann Lake frame top feeders have there own drawbacks as I stated earlier and I prefer the wood version of Miller feeders and offered it as a suggestion. Ther is some problems with mildew and molding. Note the additional screened vent holes over the syrup and I use lemon juice in the same quantity my wife uses in canning tomatoes to retard molding. 1Tbsp per quart. A bleach mixture cleans the wood up readily and retards mildew growth. 

But the original thread is requesting insights on Mann Lake top frame feeders.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

mgolden said:


> Haven't had great experience with frame feeders and will use them as a last choice.
> -more drowned bees
> -hard to get the bees out of the sock bee ladders to fill the feeder
> -takes up space of two frames, so lose use of two frames
> ...


Thanks for the insight, I'm new to this so I hadn't considered the lost frame space (kind of a no-brainer) and having to suit up and smoke the hive/open it so lost time there (another no brainer). Making me re-thinkg ordering a bunch of in-hive feeders.


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

_"......sometimes there are a lot of bees under the feeder that have a difficult 
time finding their way out in a short time no matter how much smoke."

_For those bees that get up between plastic bin and the sides of the shallow super, you could seal that space off. The bees cannot access the syrup and get lost up there anyway. I'm going to try some tubular foam insulation or weather stripping next time. I hope they don't chew on that, and it works. 

Some use spar varnish or polyuerethane on the wood feeders. I think Brushy Mtn. or Kelley's sells it.

_"Cambridge epoxy ester clear coating. Kelly and Brushy Mtn. sell it. Supposed to be approved for food contact. If you buy Kelly's hive top feeder kits, this is the stuff they send to seal it." -_From 2006
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...terproofing-top-feeder&highlight=spar+varnish


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## Spark (Feb 24, 2011)

I got one this year to try, my other hive top feeders are the wooden slatted float type from Brushy Mountain. I much prefer the Brushy ones, the bees seem to greater access and I have very little drowning if any during the fall nothing in spring. With the Mann Lake style the bees build comb in the entrance slot and clog the screen so they have trouble accessing the syrup. Also limits the amount of bees to the feed. 

The syrup in the Brushy Mountain type (Miller sells it too as do others) gives better acccess to more bees and I noticed after the summer they fill the comb faster in the brood chamber.


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## toomanyhandles (Jun 24, 2009)

RE: the Mann Lake feeder, I used them this spring and they did well, no bees drowned to speak of.

However I did have a lot of moisture on the inner cover. Mold on all lower surfaces of the inner covers.

I don't know how to best ventilate this, any actual opening and there will be entry and definite drowning, and a screened opening is going to gather a fair amount of interest plus let in insects smaller than the bees, which will then drown.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i ventilated my mann lake hive top feeders with the same inner covers i use when not feeding. they have notches front and back that have window screen around them to block robbers and pests.


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

I had one; bees hated it. I use ones like this: http://www.betterbee.com/Products/F...Max-Hive-Top-Feeder-for-10-Frame-Wooden-Hives. Except mine are wood. For some reason, the girls seem to like these better and they're easier to fill. Don't have to take the whole cover off.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Tia, to which 'one' are you referring?


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

The feeder with the center entry with bins you fill on either side. Mine has only one entry at the front of the hive and for some reason the bees seem to like it better.


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