Honey Bee Feeder by doogielabs

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I printed in two different colors, black for the bottom and blue for the top. Honey Bees see a different color spectrum than humans. Google around for the pictures of what flowers look like to a honey bee.
Honey Bees cannot see red, so I do not recommend printing in red. They seem to prefer colors that are closer to the UV spectrum, with UV absorbing colors being more attractive.
For the food, I take bottled water and mix in as much white sugar as possible. If you take a standard water bottle half full with the filtered water, add sugar until the bottle is over 3/4ths full and shake vigorously. If the water is warmed up the sugar will dilute into the water easier.
The sweeter the mix is, the less attractive it will be to wasps. Yellowjackets and wasps typically prefer savory flavors, which explains why I always see them near the trash can or even eating meat.
I start by filling the feeder up to the top of the ridges.
I plan to conduct further experiments to come up with a more ergonomic feeding apparatus for the Bees. I would also like to explore the possibility of adding some threads into the center so a water bottle can be screwed in for extended feeding.