This morning it wasn't too bad first thing so I thought I had better pop out and see if the bees had been feeding, soon saw they hadn't so decided would remove feeder and close hive up for the winter, what did I do wrong? I was in a rush and decided that I didn't need my bee suit! Big mistake, a few bees started to fly and land on me, I quickly realised that retreat was best policy and dashed indoors and put on my suit, little did I realise that two bees had joined me inside my suit! They made there presence soon felt and no that isn't my elbow in the picture, it was a pretty impressive bee sting, think the whole venom sack was pumped into my arm! :-)

The other picture is the mouse guard that I put in place as well, mice like to live in the bottom of hives in the winter, the hives are dry and warm.

Last feed of the year? Perhaps.

It was a bit warmer at the end of last week and the bees were busy, so thought I would tempt them with some more sugar solution, I fed them 2 pints on Wednesday and by Friday morning they had polished it off, as I planned to be away over the weekend I thought I should continue feeding so gave then 4 pints, as yet it's too dark and wet to check, but hopefully I will be able to quickly look in the hive under floodlight before end of week to see if they are still feeding.
That will make 25kgs of sugar they have consumed since I started the winter feed!
Ok and this time I stuck the cover strip down in the feeder with some Duct Tape so that I didn't drown awhole lot more of my bees!
In about a month it with be time to think about treating with oxalic acid for varroa and also how on earth I am going to tidy up the mess in the brood box that I have allowed to happen by using different size frames! Well they do say you learn more by your mistakes, hopefully no harm will have been done:-)