Personally, I have never used a feeder of any kind for meal worms. All I do it put them in a bowl on the deck railing when I decide it’s time to offer a few. They shouldn’t have all that many in a day anyway. Having said that, I’ll give you a couple of ideas.
First thing you have to do is get them to notice worms are available. To do that, you often have to put a smooth sided container on the ground near where they perch to hunt. This gives them a good chance to notice. Then you move the container nearer and nearer to where you want to feed them. If you choose a small enough container, you will be able to put it inside your dinner bell. When they have succeeded in following the container to the feeder you can dispense with the container.
You will have to protect the worms from sun and water while you are training the birds.
Other birds are going to notice so you might not feed just EABL. That’s always ok with me. You might feel differently.
Once you have the birds trained and if you have hawks around, an audible signal to call your birds isn’t such a good idea. Hawks soon learn that their own dinner bell has sounded and you’ll get more company than you would like.
Gin
Atlanta, GA