Between day 1 and day 8.

As I write this on May 7, 2013, it is day 3 for the hives.  Over the past two days, it seems that Hive B has been more active.  I'm still quite a novice, so I'm not going to make much of this difference.  There are just more bees going in and out of Hive B compared to Hive A.  None of the bees has any pollen on their legs that I can see.  However, there aren't really any flowers out of significance.  The forests around here have some spring ephemerals blooming, but there isn't a great number of them.

Now, for this paragraph, it is May 11, and I plan to inspect the hives tomorrow.  I have given the smoker a test run with cypress animal bedding, and this worked very well.  It burned a bit fast, still, so I will likely bring extra out to the apiary with me (along with a lighter).

The past several days have brought cold temperatures.  In the evenings, it has been in the low 40's to even an upper-30 degree night.  The days have not been very warm.  It was also very windy today, 5/11/2013.  The hives have not been very active.  I'm a bit worried about this, but not overly so.  When I sat to watch the hives, I'd see a few bees every minute.  Some returning, some leaving, some just poking their heads out of the entrance.  It was difficult to resist the urge to take a peek under the lid, to just see the activity (or lack thereof) inside the hives.

The activity difference between the two hives that I note on day 3 didn't really last past day 3 - 4.

My hope is that it has just been too cold/rainy/windy for the bees to do much foraging outside the hives.  Also, there are almost no flowers out yet.  Tomorrow will tell whether the hives are just normally inactive or whether there is a deeper problem...  Such as the queen(s) being gone, dead, or unproductive.

I have two new pails of sugar syrup mixed up.  I'll take them out of the refrigerator tomorrow so that they are warmed for the bees by the time of the afternoon inspection.  The pails that are currently on the hives (one each) might not be empty.  But, sugar is relatively cheap and I'd like to make sure that I'm not feeding the bees fermented sugar syrup.  I can only assume that drunk bees are more hostile and sting-happy than sober ones...