what exactly IS a sugar shower?

In the short 14 days that I've been a beekeeper I've experimented with 3 different ways to feed my bees. All bee colonies need to have a sugar syrup available to them in the spring before the nectar flow comes on. The sugar syrup provides the hard working bees with food, when their food stores are diminished from eating on through the winter. This sugar syrup mixture can also be used to medicate the bees if necessary.

Upon arrival home with my three infant bee colonies I used:
1) a gallon ziplock baggie, laid flat, with an inch slit cut in the top.
2) a quart mason jar with 3 teeny, tiny holes punctured in the lid, inverted, set directly over the bees, implementing the law of physics....invert the mason jar, liquid runs to the bottom, air goes to the top and ta-dah.....your syrup stops leaking.
3)a 2 gallon bucket with a purchased "beekeeping" plug screen, implying the same law of physics.

I believe you can have success with each of these methods if done correctly. You can also kill 10,000 or more bees in a split second if done incorrectly.....which was my fate.

First mistake, after seeing how well the bees were getting along with the baggie, and one slit, I thought more is better! Slit, slit, slit..... Lets allow these ladies to drink.

Days later: Hmmmmm...a few drowned bees which is one of the noted cons of the baggie feeding method. Mistake 2: I think I'll throw out the over slit baggie and place in the new "beekeeping bucket".

Now imagine standing in the pouring down rain, on a blistery cold 50* day. Actually, imagine standing out in a pouring down rain storm, a few thumps of hail, and the wind blowing 40+ miles per hour making it hard for you to stand up.....boo, hoo, hoo. That was the fate of my little ladies. When I inverted the 2 gallon bucket, half full of sugar syrup, the vacum theory didn't take affect. Unbeknownst to me the ladies were being doused in a sugar shower with no where to go, no where to hide....

That my dear friends is a sugar shower...a deadly, please try to avoid if you're a new bee keeper, sugar downpour. Perhaps my sugar syrup was too watery, perhaps I had equipment failure, perhaps that law of physics just doesn't really work....?

Regardless, I have resorted back to using the gallon baggie method, with 1, uno, a single, inch slit in the top of the baggie.