The weather's taken a really chilly turn and it's looking like I may not be able to inspect the hives again this year. It has to be 'shirtsleeves weather' to do an inspection otherwise there's a danger of chilling the brood.
It doesn't really matter if I can't look in again as all I have to do now is feed them sugar syrup to boost their winter stores and then secure the hive for winter - none of this requires doing anything more than lifting the top lid off.
These rapid-feeders can hold 4 pints of sugar syrup (usually that can be taken in 24 hours) so I'll just keep topping these two up until the bees stop taking it inside.
Once that's done I'll do all the same jobs as last year in preparations for winter.
