Feeding day and night and a different consumption rate

[Bamabww]

The hive I posted about almost a month ago that was robbed out and their queen killed has revived. They made a new queen with the eggs I borrowed from another hive and I've been feeding them for about three weeks. This week I started feeding them day and night. About 6 a.m. I've been putting in two quarts of syrup and about 6 p.m. taking the empties out and replacing them with two more full ones. The two that are placed in the hive in the morning are always empty by 6 p.m. The two put in just before night are only about half empty at 6 a.m. the next morning. I leave them and put in two more full ones. All four will be empty at 6 p.m.

So what gives? All the foragers, or most of them anyway, are back in the hive for the night shift. They are already leaving when I go to the hive at 6 a.m. I'm a little surprised that they don't take as much at night as they do in the day time.

I have a empty deep setting on the inner cover and place the feeders on the inner cover. I place the telescoping cover over the empty deep with the feeders inside. The only access is thru the slot cut in the inner cover.

Using this type feeder:

[iddee]

Good subject. I don't remember reading anything about when and how much bees sleep. Maybe somebody can shed a little light on their sleeping habits.

[LazyBkpr]

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/211/18/3028.full

  Feeding that much that fast, I would be a little concerned about plugging up the brood nest with syrup, so keep an eye on it Bama.

[riverbee]

wayne, from what i have read, the  bees never 'sleep', they work 24~7 whether it's night or day.  as far as the feed is concerned, my guess is the reason they are taking less at night is the bees are busy removing the moisture from the syrup stored during daylight hours during night time hours....?
as far as what foragers are doing, great question, read this somewhere, will look it up!

a good post, and perhaps apis can add his thoughts.

[Bamabww]

 I had 15 deep frames of drawn comb and 5 frames with just foundation when I started this hive after being robbed out. I borrowed two frames from my strongest hive, one frame with capped brood and the other with eggs, larvae and brood. They made them a new queen and were off to the races with my buckwheat just about ready to bloom. I was afraid they wouldn't draw the comb on the 5 frames and started feeding them 1 quart a day until this week when I doubled that to 2 quarts and kept it available around the clock. Then I noticed a difference in consumption between day and night and thought I'd share that to see what you thought.

It puzzled me because it's always dark inside the hive, well maybe not 100% during the daytime.

After what Scott said, a point which I hadn't thought of, thanks Scott, I checked the hive's two deeps this morning before adding the new syrup. They are starting to draw comb on each of the 5 frames and have capped stores across the top of each frame in the bottom deep. That's also where the capped brood is and where the queen is laying. She has plenty of space to lay still in the bottom deep with maybe 4 frames cleaned and ready for use. Or so it seems to me.

The other deep has 5 frames with drawn comb being filled and as I said comb being drawn on the other 5. I don't know where all the syrup is going but they have slacked off today taking it. I mentioned in the original post they were emptying the 2 quarts plus whatever was left in the ones put in the previous night. Checking this afternoon around 4 p.m. (2 hours earlier than usual) they still have about a 1/4 of the syrup left in one feeder from this morning.  The others are empty. But my buckwheat and Jake Soybeans are in full bloom and they may be in the process of turning down the syrup in preference to the real stuff they can get now.