End of term report

Temperature: 16C
Weather: Cool, cloudy, threatening rain
Stings: half

A bee in my shirt! A bee in my shirt! That was a tense few moments. And where did it sting me? On my hand. I thought I was guaranteed to get a sting on the back given it was buzzing around in my shirt but it only stung me when I was batting it away afterwards. And even then it was only a semi-sting. It barely hurts today.

Anyhoo, today was probably the last inspection/manipulation of the year. I gave the bees some stores to see them through and tidied up the hive in preparation for them going more dormant as the temperature falls. They really were not happy about me adding those frames of stores, especially as I had to make room for them by moving frames with lots of bees on them. Quite a few boiled out and began buzzing me with one in particular that would not leave me alone. This was the one that ended up diving down my collar when I'd taken off the veil.

Fingers crossed that the bees make it through. They should be okay. They have stores. Good numbers and are in a sheltered area. I'll go back and check on them regularly as I start to tidy up the plot in the allotment. I want to get it to a situation where I can swap the hives around and do swarm prep more easily than at the moment. For historical reasons the hives are on one edge of the plot and there is lots more of it that is completely unused.