"Earwigs!"

A lot of my hives, particularly the empty ones, have been riddled with earwigs all through the summer: wonder if they affect the bees?!Must be the year of the earwig.
On a different line I found a dead Hornet? in the entrance to one of my hives last week. I took pictures and sent one to DEFRA, who have said I can send the insect to them for true identification: to my relief (they say) its' not an Asian Hornet.

Shutting Up Shop

Having inspected all colonies this week, there is a general trend toward reducing the brood nest and substantial stores are appearing on the outer brood frames. Wasps are also appearing at the entrances, so I have reduced all full entrances using mouse guards, with masking tape where colonies are smaller to make entrances easier to defend. The honey on will be left for the bees to take down in the coming weeks and I will encourage them to do this. The Varroa treatment (Apiguard) is due and as supers can be removed I will look towards winter feed (Fondant blocks) going on. Where did the season go? It happened so fast, though this season has been a bit of a battle.

On The Defence... Mancini!

It was a lovely day today. I checked all my colonies. 4 new queens are laying well (the last/latest who I feel can build up sufficient to survive - dare I say - the coming winter). Noticably all colonies were more defensive of their stores today, shades of my football team!