In this video, I'll show you how we built our first bucket feeder (also known as a community feeder) for our bees. The advantage of a bucket feeder (as opposed to hive feeders) is that we can feed the bees a lot of sugar water at once, without having to refill the feeder every day.

One downside of bucket feeders is they can promote robbing. That's why we placed our bucket feeder a few hundred yards away from (and out of sight from) our hives.

A second disadvantage of bucket feeders is they're usually made of plastic. Most plastics contain estrogenlike chemicals that can leach into the sugar water, and which are toxic to mammals (including humans). I don't know if they're also toxic to bees, but we decided not to take the risk and stopped using plastic buckets.

So if you decide to make a bucket feeder, I'd recommend using a metal bucket or a steel drum with a tight lid instead of the Home Depot buckets we used in the beginning.

What you need to make a bucket feeder:

5gallon bucket
Power drill with a 1/16 drill bit
Sharpie pen

[Chapter Markers]

0:00 Intro
0:39 The Advantages of Using a Home Depot Bucket
2:16 Drilling Holes in the Bucket
3:04 The Finished Result

To follow along with us as we learn the ropes of beekeeping and suburban homestead living, check out our Instagram account (@kummerhomestead), where we share the useful tips and tricks we discover.

#Beekeeping #Beekeeping101 #Homesteading