Apache access log file updates

I'm running Apache on one of my computers (on SUSE10.0)... it's working fine, but I've noticed something annoying with the access log file... it's not updated on a regular basis. I think it's logging all the access to the webserver... but I'm not sure. I see activity on the outgoing side, I know there's someone accessing the data/pages on my webserver, but when I check the log file, the last entry is at least 30 minutes to an hour old - even though the last time stamp on the file is usually less than 3 minutes old. This has been going on for a while now... is this known behaviour? Or is there some setting I haven't discovered yet that sets teh access log file verbosity/update frequency? C.