I checked on the colony today, and I saw a bad sign. The bees had eaten all but a tiny piece of the candy from two weeks ago, leaving a piece the size roll of dimes. What worried me is I could see about 50 or so though the whole in the inner cover, and they didn’t seem to be moving in the 5-10 seconds I took a look at them. I would have looked longer, but I was afraid to keep the hive open for longer, even though the inner cover was never removed. So, I put in more candy on top of some thin paper, crossed my fingers, and closed up the hive.
A beekeeper tipped me off that dead bees stink (they are organic matter after all), and these didn’t smell, or if they did, it was pretty subtle. If you think about a few thousand dead insects, you’d think they’d smell – a lot.
So maybe this is a good sign.
Or it’s a bad sign.
Or it’s not a sign at all.
Ugh. I think I have beekeeper angst.