Preparing for winter

Have not been posting the past few weeks, as not much has happened.

Well, that's not quite true: the school was inspected and the bees had to yield before the exigencies of such academic spirallings. I do try and put the bees first in all, but last week was so intense that I really had little time for the little ones.

Nevertheless, I have been cooking up lots of syrup (my 1.5l bottle count is now up to 7 in an attempt to keep up with the speed the bees are taking the syrup down into the hives). Have also learnt how to handle the contact feeders and have a little bowl to catch the surplus when I turn them around. Amazing how beekeeping equipment just proliferates. My guess is the Moon is full up and the Star is also doing well. Bees are still collecting pollen though - no signs of any winter quiet or calm yet.

One thing that bothers me with the contact feeders is that whenever I replenish them, a number of bees are trapped in the ekes and die there. Is there no way to prevent this? I know, remove the wood covering one hole in the crownboard, but then my busy bees would start doing silly things in the eke. Not sure what else to do. It does pain me to trap a few, knowing they face certain starvation.

Combined feeder and deathtrap

Also put the varroa boards in, but left them in so long that the results are lots of muck, fuzz and bits and bobs and no way to count dropped mites. Not sure I will count them this year. There are still mites parachuting down, so will treat the hives with oxalic acid and then start afresh with the new season. While that makes me feel like a rotten beekeeper, there's really not that much I could do now. I guess part of beekeeping is taking decisions of what to do and what not to do - despite what the books say. Hmmm... Hope all goes well. Whenever I stray from the path of libral wisdom, I feel all my bees will die over the winter.

When going to check on feeders and see what hefting the hive was like (it told me nothing, but the hives seemed heavy), I discovered that the mouseguard on the Star had slipped, effectively blocking the entrance and making it impossible for bees to enter or exit. Will have to fix that tomorrow. Opened the guard and the bees very happily clustered around the entrance and seemed glad that the building works were over and their main thoroughfare free again.
Didn't even get stung. That's true gratefulness!