Recap...I'm a little more than 5 weeks in with my first two Nucs, I moved them from their Nuc boxes to their hive boxes with internal feeders about a week and a half ago and removed the open feeder. Since that time, I've been a little concerned about my second hive, Bravo. While Alpha hive is taking the Sugar Syrup extremely well, probably 4 or 5 quarts since the move to the internal feeder, Bravo hive has basically not touched theirs. Maybe an inch or two accumulated drop in a quart jar total. I've swapped jars, checked for clogged holes, etc. etc. etc. It's the bees, not the feeder, they're just not drinking it.
Other than that, I would say all things have appeared to be normal bee activity for the most part, with a couple of exceptions. Bravo used to be noticeably stronger than Alpha, more bees and more bee traffic outside the hive, but now it seems to have swapped.
Other recent observations: Sunday, Alpha was extremely busy with bees coming in, loaded with pollen. While Bravo was active, but to a lesser degree, I didn't notice any pollen actually coming in.
Yesterday, around Bravo, I found a crawling bee, which seemed unable to fly. I've read about crawlers and Varroa and deformed wings. However, this bee looked perfectly normal as best I could tell. Is this a sign of a problem, or normal? I want to say I've seen maybe a hand full of these over the last several days. While near the ground behind Bravo looking at this bee, I noticed maybe 8 to 10 dead bees in the dirt. Again, Normal? or a problem?
I also watched a wasp enter the hive unopposed....although it was run out about 30 seconds to a minute later. Normal or not?
Being torn between curiosity that something might be going on and unfavorable weather conditions for opening a hive (Mid 60's, cloudy and threatening rain)...I decided to take a quick peek yesterday. I didn't want to pull any frames or keep it open any longer than time for a quick look, there seemed to be plenty of bees in between the frames with nothing jumping out as a glaring problem.
If y'all will remember correctly, a couple weeks ago I was all worried about Alpha because of some pupae outside the hive. Looks like that was all normal and they are booming now...
This bee thing is almost like parenting, I spend so much time worrying about the girls! :)
Thoughts on my current situation with Bravo?