I feed live and the first time i fed ( a week after i got my 3 babies) The 2 males struck and hit perfect first shot, But were kinda of skiddish and took them longer because it was new to them ( i feed out of their enclosure) The female Sat in defensive positions and struck exactly like what your describing, The first 2-3 times were complete misses and i thought (being new to bps) that she was just missing, so i let her keep goin the 4-5 time she hit the mouse dead on and released, thats when i knew she wasn't trying to eat but was being defensive, and she was stressed. So i put her back in her enclosure and this week i fed the 2 males the same way as before and they ate within 10 seconds of me dropping the mouse and i just put the other mouse in the females enclosure and id say within a minute she had it wrapped and was eating. The biggest thing i think is making them comfortable if they are stressed they wont eat. Thats why i fed her in her tub and left her alone for a complete weak before that.
Im new to this but hope that helps a bit!