Apidea feeders

Hello all,

For the first time, I bought a couple of two-tier Apideas with top feeders.

I have two questions: each Apidea came with a white queen excluder with a couple of screws - but I can't see where it is supposed to fit!

The second question is about the top feeder. There is no baffle to cover the little dam wall - so, how do you prevent the bees from drowning? Do you make your own baffles, or do you fill the feeder with twigs and bits of wood?
Kitta

Attachment 2998

PS: I think I've just now found the answer to my first question: I should pin it underneath the feeder to prevent the queen going up into the feeder. I still wonder about the baffle, though.

Attachment 2999

I can't help you with the Apideas as I've never used them. I always used to stop my bees from drowning in mini-nucs by using fondant. It worked well and they drew comb perfectly well. It makes moving full mini-nucs, whether with bees or food or both, much easier.

Thanks Fatshark. I've since emailed Jon for help, and he said the same: they draw out comb well with fondant. He doesn't use the top feeders - only the internal ones filled with fondant - but he does sometimes later fill that with syrup and bits of float like correx. I now have the top feeders, and made a little baffle for one. I'll see how it goes!
Kitta

Well, how it goes so far is that the bees totally ignored the top feeder. Jon said that’s what usually happens. Perhaps when, or if, there’s a larger colony using two boxes of Apidea, they might become interested. For now, I’ve removed the top feeder.