Population Boom

May 17, 2007

I opened the hive up to fill the feeder and noticed that it seems like the hive is a lot more bustling. It could just be that I caught the hive when a lot of the workers had come in for the night (it was in the early evening) or it could be my imagination, but it seemed like there were a lot more bees in there than before. I hope this is a good sign that the hive is established and getting well populated.

My plan is to check the hive on Sunday and see if they're ready for a second hive box.

Some other highlights:

-As I was pouring the syrup into the feeder bin I saw bees run up and start drinking the syrup straight from the little stream of syrup that came from the pouring.

-As always there were about 50 or so bees on the inside of the lid so I am always careful to set it so that they don't get crushed. When I put the lid back on I did so slowly to make sure I didn't crush any bees and I noticed that as soon as the lid got close to the open hive top the bees all started to meander in the direction of the hive. Perhaps they were following the phermone scent of the hive, but it was kind of cool to see all of the bees suddenly marching in the same direction right into the hive.