Ferret performance before optimization

My problem is that I am adding on the order of hundreds of records, so
not that many. The index is REALLY slow after I start adding records
until I call optimize_index (I added a method for that - it’s a ferret
function). Then it drops from >2 seconds to ~100ms per query.

I figure the bulk_index functionality will help close the window of
slowness, but not ideal and I don’t know when that will be added to a
stable tag.

Any idea why this would happen or how to avoid it?

Thanks