Not very long! I am still a new beek. This will be my second year but I sure do enjoy having bees. I am down to 7 colonies now, but am hoping to get up to around 20 hives by fall. The girls are bring in pollen now(not sure what yet). The other day when I was over at the sugar bush, I found a few bees in my sap buckets. We also have the gardens to look forward too(wife is a garden nut). I still have a couple hundred gals of sap to boil today and what ever we get tomorrow and after that weather is to warm.