Patent Application
20220295759
The present application is generally related to bees, and is more specifically related to bee feeders and bee feeding systems used for feeding bee colonies.
Honey bee feeders typically provide a sugar syrup, or similar viscous liquid food source, to honey bees during times of the year when food sources are scarce, when a new hive is installed, when an established honey bee hive is relocated, or during autumn when honey bees are building up their winter food stores in the form of honey. Several styles of honey bee feeders exist, including internal hive-top feeders, external-top feeders, bucket feeders, and the most common—entrance feeders. The invention described in this application is an improvement upon prior art in a number of important ways, including the fact that this invention can hold a larger feed reservoir than conventional entrance feeders, so the beekeeper does not have to feed bees as often; and, this invention is more secure than prior art, in that the bee feeder described in this application physically attaches to the honey bee box.
Only two species of honey bee are commercially cultivated, specifically Apis mellifera, the European honey bee, and Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee. The European honey bee is the most common honey bee living in North America; and, although not native to North America, has become a major pollinator of agricultural products. Pollinators, including the honey bee, are collectively responsible for pollinating roughly one third of all food consumed by Americans.
Honey bees have been kept by apiarists for thousands of years, largely for their production of honey. In antiquity, honey bees were often cultivated in trees; however, modern beekeepers typically propagate and raise honey bees in man-made structures such as bee boxes. Beekeepers are interested in propagating their honey bee hives in order to increase honey production, improve the health of individual colonies, pollinate crops, and to help insure against loss of their honey bee colonies due to disease, pesticides, weather, global warming, and other factors.
Spring is the time of year when beekeepers focus on propagating their honey bee colonies by using various propagation methods including, but not limited to, purchasing “packages” or “nucs,” splitting established colonies, or capturing feral honey bee colonies and moving them to the apiary.
Honey bee packages include thousands of female worker bees of various ages, a smaller number of male drones, and one small box that includes a single queen and approximately 6-10 attendant worker bees that feed and groom the queen. Typically, the bees acquired in packages are largely unrelated, and not part of an established, functioning colony. The beekeeper will install the package bees into a hive box with frames. Three distinct disadvantages of using packages include: 1. the colony may not accept the queen; 2. bees from packages are introduced into a brood box with no or very few resources such as stored food, so the colony must spend a large amount of energy constructing comb and preparing the hive box before honey production begins; and, 3. the honey bees released from packages require some time until they begin working together as a fully functioning superorganism.
Nucs typically include bees that were introduced into a nuc box the previous summer, so they have survived a winter as a working colony. Nuc boxes typically include frames with living broods at various stages of metamorphosis, as well as nectar, honey, and a laying queen that has already been accepted by the worker bees and drones. Nucs may be preferred over package bees, as they are already a working colony with a laying queen; however, nucs typically cost more than packages.
No matter what method is used to increase the number of honey bee colonies in the apiary, the new honey bees generally must be fed sugar syrup to supplement locally obtainable natural food sources. Honey bees introduced from another area will not be familiar with the location of local food sources. Even if hives within the same apiary are split into multiple hives, they may lack adequate resources, and will benefit from being fed by the apiarist. Beekeepers typically feed hives in the spring; fall, and winter. During the summer months most honey bee colonies find adequate nectar and pollen from flowers and trees.
Commercial honey bee hive boxes, or houses, include a box structure filled with a series of removable frames. A thin, plastic foundation is inserted into frames, and honey bees construct wax comb onto the foundation in hexagonal shaped cells. The most commonly used type of honey bee house used in North America includes boxes that are stacked on top of each other. As the top box becomes filled with comb, brood, and honey the beekeeper places another box with empty frames on top so the colony has adequate space to expand upwards.
Brood boxes are the bottom one or two boxes of a hive, and the bees' reproduction takes place here. The queen lays fertilized eggs inside cells constructed onto empty frames inside the brood boxes. The eggs metamorphose into pupae and larvae, and then they emerge as adult bees in about 21 days. The boxes above the brood box(es) are called honey supers. The worker bees make honey and store it into the cells of the honey supers, During summer and fall honey bees typically make more honey than the colony requires to survive the following winter, so the beekeeper may remove the excess honey for human use.
Honey bee feeders can be broadly classified as either external feeders or internal feeders, with each type having their own benefits and limitations. Several companies manufacture and sell numerous models and styles of both internal and external feeders. Understanding the different advantages and disadvantages of typical honey bee feeders will highlight the benefits, improvements, and innovations of the inventive Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder described herein and created by the inventor.
Internal feeders are physically situated inside a hive box. Some common designs require that a feeding shim or an empty box without frames be placed atop the stack of brood boxes and honey supers, if any, and the hive box cover is placed onto this empty box. An internal feeder can be placed on top of the frames held in the box below, and inside an empty top box. In warm weather these internal feeders frequently include an inverted fruit jar filled with sugar syrup attached to a feeder component. In cold weather granulated sugar or food patties may be placed inside a feeding shim or empty box at top of the hive for the bees to consume.
Another common internal feeder is the frame feeder. Frame feeders are empty reservoirs which can be filled with sugar syrup. Frame feeders are nearly the same length and width as the wooden frames that are placed inside the brood boxes and honey supers, but when filled with sugar syrup they tend to bulge out and become a bit wider than the frames. The beekeeper removes one or two wooden frames from the hive and replaces them with a frame feeder which the beekeeper must periodically fill with sugar syrup. The bees enter the reservoir through one or more holes in the top of the frame feeder to access the syrup; some designs include a ladder that bees may climb up and down to access the sugar syrup inside the feeder to reduce drowning. Many bees drown inside these internal frame feeders, so they must be cleaned out frequently by the beekeeper.
The process of opening a hive involves removing the top cover, and sometimes unstacking or removing the honey supers and brood boxes. Opening a hive when the ambient temperature is below fifty degrees Fahrenheit can chill or kill the bees; so, in cold weather, the beekeeper is not able to monitor internal feeders as efficiently as in warm temperatures.
The bucket feeder is a common external feeder style. As the name implies, a bucket is filled with sugar syrup and placed at the edge of the apiary approximately 200 feet from the managed bee colonies. Bucket feeders may hold larger volumes of feed than other styles of honey bee feeders; however, many non-target organisms can also access and consume the feed in bucket feeders. Another disadvantage of the bucket feeder is that the bees must leave the hive and fly across the bee yard, so the outdoor temperature must be greater than fifty degrees Fahrenheit for the honey bees to feed. Additionally, if bucket feeders are placed too closely to the apiary, unwanted pests are more likely to enter the apiary and rob the hives of honey. Bucket feeders are also more likely to promote disease in the managed hives than other feeder styles.
The most common style of bee feeder is the entrance feeder. It is so named because the feeder is installed very near or inside the entrance of bee hive boxes. The most common style of entrance feeder utilizes an inverted one-quart fruit jar with holes in the lid. The resident honey bees consume the feed by moving through a tube to access sugar syrup dripping from the inverted fruit jar lid.
Additionally, in temperate climates with cold winters, an important management concern is excluding mice from the colony. Mice will frequently seek warm cavities in which to reside during cold weather, and bee boxes are often selected by mice as shelter. Mice residing inside honeybee hives harm the colony by consuming hive resources and the bees themselves.
Mice do not have solid skulls, so can squeeze through holes and crevices as small as one-half inch; therefore, many mouse guards are made of metal sheeting or hardware cloth with holes between ¼ inch and ½ inch across so mice cannot enter. Honeybees are able to pass through the mouse guards.
Typically, beekeepers remove their entrance feeders in the fall because honeybees will not feed from entrance feeders during cold weather. Beekeepers also usually install a mouse guard across the entire span of the bee house entrance before winter. Consequently, once the beekeeper removes the entrance feeder and attaches the mouse guard, it is not possible to continue feeding the bees with an entrance feeder unless the mouse guard is removed and the feeder is reinstalled.
Conventional honey bee feeding systems suffer from numerous deficiencies that the invention disclosed herein cures.
Honey bee entrance feeders in prior art or sold in the public marketplace do not physically attach to the honey bee box, or house, so they may easily slip out of the feeder, or be pulled out by animals such as raccoons.
Honey bee entrance feeders in the marketplace and in prior art do not use and cannot accommodate syrup reservoirs greater than one quart in volume.
Other honey bee entrance feeders in the marketplace and in prior art do not include any mechanism to block off the open feeding cavity of the feeder when the fruit jar, or other feed reservoir, is removed. Consequently, when feeding jars are removed from conventional feeders, the inside of the bee box, or house, is not protected from mice, insects, or precipitation that can enter the bee feeder through the open feeding cavity hole, and then pass through the feeder and enter the interior of the bee box.
Conventional entrance feeders and prior art possess at least five important problems that are solved by the inventor's Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder. These problems include:
The invention created by the inventor herein solves these problems with the prior art by:
The present invention is designed to feed sugar syrup, or similar viscous liquid, as food or nutrition supplementation, to honeybee colonies residing in manmade bee houses or bee boxes. The present invention is designed to be manufactured in plastic, either through plastic injection molding, 3-D printing, or similar process. The invention is not limited to being manufactured in plastic or by the aforementioned manufacturing processes, as current and future technologies and manufacturing processes change and develop or become more or less economical. Manufacturing the Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder in plastic is one preferred embodiment, but the invention may be made of wood, metal, or other materials.
A primary objective of the invention is to provide systems, methods, devices, and equipment for permanently or semi-permanently attaching an entrance bee feeder to honey bee houses and boxes with screws or other hardware, and which may be attached at any location along or near the hive box entrance. The Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder may be attached to the face, side, or landing board of the bee box, or to any surface affixed to the bee house, or to any device which may be affixed to the Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder, which may facilitate or aid with the permanent or semi-permanent affixing of the feeder to or near the bee box.
A secondary objective of the invention is to provide systems, methods, devices, and equipment for an entrance bee feeder that includes a cap plug or functionally similar device that blocks the internal cavity of the feeder at some point between the top face of the feeder where the fruit jar or other feeding reservoir is installed, and the anterior, forward point of the feeding tubes that are inserted inside the bee box, so that precipitation, insects, or other objects or organisms cannot pass through the feeder via the open feeding cavity, and enter the hive through the feeder.
A third objective of the present invention is to provide systems, methods, devices, and equipment for providing an entrance bee feeder that, when attached and affixed to honey bee houses and boxes, can accommodate feeding reservoirs, including fruit jars, in sizes of one quart and larger, including but not limited to half gallon and one gallon, by being constructed with greater jar space between the face of the bee box and the most forward point of the feeding cavity.
A fourth objective of the present invention is to provide systems, methods, devices, and equipment for an entrance bee feeder that offers greater flexibility than the prior art to beekeepers during fall and winter, so the beekeeper can easily resume feeding sugar syrup to the managed bees during winter warm-ups by removing the cap plug and placing a fresh jar of sugar syrup on the feeder, and then removing the sugar syrup and replacing it with the cap plug when cold temperatures resume.
The Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder consists of two main components illustrated in the exploded view of
Additionally, the Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder as illustrated in
In this patent application, the terms “feeding reservoir” and “fruit jar” are intended to describe any container that may hold liquid, viscous, solid, semi-solid, or non-liquid feed for honey bees. The “feed,” “syrup,” and “sugar syrup” terms used in this application may include sugar syrup, which is a mixture of sugar and water in various ratios; sugar syrup plus the addition of any other nutrients or ingredients; or, other liquids, syrups, solid, or semi-solid substances which may be made available to honeybees to eat or consume or ingest, which may add nutritional benefits to the health or growth of the honeybees or to the quality of honey, wax, propolis, pollen, or royal jelly.
One preferred embodiment is shown in
This present invention is intended to include all methods of permanently or semi-permanently securing honey bee feeders to bee boxes, including the use of any, hardware, tool, or mechanism that could be inserted or pressed into any cavities or holes or attached to a honey bee box or the feeder. In other words, all methods of attaching a bee feeder to a honeybee box, or house, are intended as additional embodiments of this invention.
In one embodiment it is intended that a feeding reservoir such as an inverted fruit jar with cap and lid will fill the top of the feeding cavity. When the feeding reservoir or fruit jar is removed, the cap plug may be inserted into the cavity to prevent precipitation, mice, insects, or other potentially detrimental objects or organisms from entering the feeding cavity, and then gaining access to the bee box through the feeding tube.
The preferred embodiment as illustrated in
The preferred embodiment as depicted in
This preferred embodiment includes a solid right side 7 as shown in
The feeding tubes (46, 47) are oval shaped in the preferred embodiment as shown in
The preferred embodiment of the cap plug has a cylindrical bottom section 22 as depicted in
The lip provides a flat face that has a larger diameter of the feeding cylinder. Consequently, when the cap plug is inserted into the top of the feeding cylinder, the bottom face of the cap plug lip rests upon the top face of the feeder 44 as shown in
One embodiment of the cap plug as shown in
Honey bees may deposit propolis or honey inside the cap plug which could cause the cap plug to become stuck inside the feeder. Perspective view
To install the cap plug into the Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder the user must position the cap plug directly above the feeder, and then lower the bottom of the cap plug into the open feeding cavity; and, then press the cap plug downward so the bottom of the cap plug lip lies flat against the top face of the feeder.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the detailed description of the presently preferred embodiments which are illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings.
Other possible embodiments intended to be protected by this application could include parts of a honey bee feeder that are not physically situated both inside and outside the bee box, or house, as is depicted in the accompanying drawings, but may be placed entirely inside the honey bee box entrance; completely outside the honey bee box entrance; in the vicinity of the bee box entrance; and, not only attached to the bee box, or house, but also placed onto or attached to another device and placed near the honey bee box.
Other embodiments may allow the Attachable Entrance Bee Feeder to be attached to the bee box by other methods and other kinds of hardware than screws, including adhesive and chemical products, brackets, nails, bolts, other hardware and means. The concept of fastening the bee feeder to the bee box, or house, is a unique design feature that other entrance bee feeders in the marketplace and prior art do not possess; the concept of attaching the feeder to the bee box is an integral and necessary improvement of the invention over prior art.
The embodiments described in this application and illustrated in the accompanying drawings are given by way of illustration only. It is not intended that the invention be limited in its scope to the details of construction and arrangement of components set forth in these descriptions or illustrated in the drawings. Also, in describing the preferred embodiments, specific terminology is resorted to for the sake of clarity. It is to be understood that each specific term herein includes all technical equivalents which operate in a similar manner to accomplish a similar purpose.
The foregoing descriptions and drawings should be considered as illustrative only of the principles of the invention. The invention may be configured in a variety of shapes and sizes and is not limited by the dimensions and scales of the preferred embodiments, Numerous applications of the present invention will readily occur to those skilled in the art. Therefore, it is not desired to limit the invention to the specific examples disclosed or the exact construction and operation shown and described. Rather, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention,
