First off, great thread! Couldn't have come at a more perfect time for me. Thanks LazyBkpr!
After doing an inspection yesterday and observing my hives this week I noticed a change in behavior of the hives. They were foraging before even though I was feeding them. I was only checking their feeders once a week. I started checking the feeders last week more frequently and noticed they were empty. I started filling them as fast as they were emptying them. Hopefully they will reverse from storing the excess syrup that I was giving them.
These were new packages that I got on May 5th. My goal was to try and get all my frames drawn out. At the inspection yesterday, I noticed that there were three mediums full of bees home when the foragers should be away. This was at 4:00 in the afternoon. Watching them periodically today, they bees would fly up to the top of my feeder, fly out and go back in the bottom of the hive. They can access from the inside so I thought this a little odd. I observed very few foragers coming in. Hives have a lot of pollen stored. I believe that when they ran out of sugar water before, they foraged as they should.
I pulled the feeders tonight and will see how the rest of the summer goes. I plan to go back in and monitor the situation. They have plenty of room to go up as they both have a fourth super to draw on and fill with honey. I may have to shake out the bottom brood frames that they stored sugar water in or move them up and put fresh comb in the bottom for the queen to lay in.
I realized going in I would probably make mistakes, that's what learning is!
