Lullabee

A complete lie - for once the bees are at rest!

After the last inspection, I thought I'd leave the bees for a fortnight or so, so they could get any and all syrup they wanted to down into the hive. The weather was also quite clement, so I saw no need to celotex them up.
Now the weather has changed to rain rain rain and rain again, I decided it was high time to insulate the bees. I waited for a (forecast) lull in the rain and used that to settle the bees in for their winter rest. Goulwenn was invaluable once again, as he fixed the strap round, while I held the celotex tiles in place.
Before that, we removed the feeder, which was only half-empty, and took off the super, so there's only a narrow eke on top of the brood box. Stores, from what we were able to see, looked good though and the bees have quite clearly stored more.
And that's it for this year. The bees will keep themselves warm over the winter with their honey/syrup reserves and I can use the quiet months to make sure all hive parts are ship-shape for spring. Will, of course, post my DIY successes and failures.