Top Feeder for Nucs

I pulled the feeder off the hive to see better how it works. Bees are notorious for drowning themselves, so I put sticks I the syrup so they can land on those and not have to swim. They're terrible swimmers.

The bees crawl up inside the feeder, then down the ladder created by the screening, slurp up the sugar syrup, then crawl back into the hive and use the feed to help make comb or feed the bees. The white/gray stuff on the screen is wax that the bees deposited. In my experience, the bees close up all screening on the top of the hive. These ones may also be making comb because of the size of the gap to get into the feeder.

"Bee space" needs only be about 3/8-inch or they start building. This is close to three inches, so I'm pretty sure they'll just build comb up here. Other than this issue, I really like this feeder.