The bond is required regardless of the hours you have, so if you want in, set asside $30,000. I have heard of pilots getting hired with less than 3,000 hours, and many of them straight off turboprops.
Conditions, pilots are doing 100 hours of flight time per month. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but when you take into account that a typical day might be do a morning flight for 45 minutes, hang around for 4 hours and fly back, and you only get credited for your flight time, it gets exhausting I'm sure. From what I've heard, the morale isn't that great in there, and it's a matter of time before they start demanding more from their contract.
Hope that helps.