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I have just a few questions about my new packages (4 are 3 weeks post install, the other 2 are two weeks post install).
1. Since most of these bees were young house bees when I installed them, at three weeks will they not mostly become foragers? Does that leave enough bees to tend to the queen and the brood or do the house bees sense that this is a new hive and delay their foraging somewhat (if as usual the queen does not start laying for 3 or 4 days, that puts new brood hatching in about 24 or 25 days).
2. I have noticed that they have really slowed down on the consumption from the feeder (even the 2 hives that are a week behind the others), am I correct in assuming that this does in fact mean that a lot of them have indeed switched to foraging (there are lots of comings and goings at the hive entrace, also see a lot of pollen coming in).
3. I still have the hive entrance reduced to about 3 inches. When should I open it up (there is a cluster of bees on the outside of the hive entrances about the diameter of a softball every night)?
4. I have recently noticed in one of the hives there are a lot of dead drones on the SBB. Many, many more than any of the other hives. What's up with that?
1. Since most of these bees were young house bees when I installed them, at three weeks will they not mostly become foragers? Does that leave enough bees to tend to the queen and the brood or do the house bees sense that this is a new hive and delay their foraging somewhat (if as usual the queen does not start laying for 3 or 4 days, that puts new brood hatching in about 24 or 25 days).
2. I have noticed that they have really slowed down on the consumption from the feeder (even the 2 hives that are a week behind the others), am I correct in assuming that this does in fact mean that a lot of them have indeed switched to foraging (there are lots of comings and goings at the hive entrace, also see a lot of pollen coming in).
3. I still have the hive entrance reduced to about 3 inches. When should I open it up (there is a cluster of bees on the outside of the hive entrances about the diameter of a softball every night)?
4. I have recently noticed in one of the hives there are a lot of dead drones on the SBB. Many, many more than any of the other hives. What's up with that?