We've been told that our mistake with the store-bought bees was that dad quit feeding them sugar water once they began bring back pollen. You can tell when they've found the flowers because many bees come back with big wads of yellow or white on their legs. Neighbor Mike said that at the seminar last month, they told him that you should feed them till they won't take any more.
Well, the captured feral bees are still drinking about a pint and a half a day. They're also building a bunch of combs. It looks like about four or five big combs so far. You can see them through the observation window that dad built into the hive. The window is right behind the home-made feeder in the photo above. The feeder is an inverted mason jar with a few small holes in the lid. The inverted jar lid is only about 1/2 inch above the platform, but the bees still can crawl in there and suck the sugar water out of the jar. You can see a few bees at the entrance hole to the right side of the picture. Now that temperatures are near 95 every day, the hole is usually surrounded by bees beating their wings, trying to increase ventilation in the hot hive.
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