One of the things that you’re supposed to do when you first install a new colony in the hive is to feed the colony until it is “established”. How long does that take? Well, it depends. Jill and I fed the bees for a few weeks until we saw that a) they weren’t taking the syrup and b) the workers were returning to the hive with pollen in their pollen baskets.
In North Carolina, you are also supposed to start feeding the colony in the heat of summer when there aren’t as many plants blooming. So for the past few weeks… or is it months… wait when was the last time… anyway, we’ve taken to feeding the bees again. One of the questions I have is just how much syrup are they going through. So consider this a marker, or maybe just a note to myself, I just fed Miss Coco Peru [have I mentioned that our naming scheme is based on the stage name of drag queens?] 10# of 1:1 syrup. Or about 5# of sugar to 5# of water.
I’ll try to check back every day for the next few to get a sense of how fast the colony is consuming the syrup.