Packages Arrived!

April 19th, 2009.
I got my bee packages Friday morning (April 17th). By noon, both were hived. Because they were packaged since Monday, I was advised to do a direct release. Unfortunately, I made a mistake: after the queen release, I left the queen cage outside the hive. On the first hive, no problem, but on the second colonie, bees started to cluster on the queen cage, eventhough it was empty. I left to work for the afternoon, and by the time I was back home, everything was quiet around the hives. The sugar syrup given on the first colony was 75% gone, while less than 20% was gone on the second one.

The second day, Saturday, saw a lot of activity on the entrance of hive 1, and very little on hive 2. Sugar syrup absobtion was lower than yesterady for both hives.
Saturday night, an inspection of the hives entrance at dusk showed guard bees still at the entrance on hive 1, no one on hive 2.

Sunday, I noticed that most of the activity visible on hive 2 was bees coming from or going to hive 1. At the end of the day, I decided to open hive 2, and saw it was empty. A few dead bees on the bottom board, but no dead queen. I don't know what happened to the queen. I supose the worker bees joined hive 1, but I am not sure.

Now the question is that are two western suppers enough for 20,000 bees? I am going to leave them alone for 1 week. I am not sure when to stop feeding.
I will post pictures of the hiving process soon.

Andre.