Twilight tasks

The last of the sunlight catching the tops of the overgrown hawthorn beside the brook in the apiary - bringing out the rapidly-deepening red of the haws - winter feed for blackbirds, redwing and fieldfare

We were there unusually late, to pick up one of those blue boxes, into which we had transferred a small colony earlier in the day. It's much easier to transport bees in a self-contained box like that than to try to seal and strap together an entire full-size hive. The colony came with us for a ride back to the second apiary near home, where we moved them, frame-by-frame out of the blue box and into a conventional hive. By this time, the sun was below the horizon and we were working in the gloom, but that's not a bad thing: the bees are quiet and easily moved across in the cool and low light - not too many dislodged from the comb and flying around lost

We are trying to combine this small colony with an equally small one that failed to replace its queen in July, and is now queenless. Hopefully, the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts and, together, they will have the strength and energy to build up their numbers before the winter. Certainly we have given them the best chance they could have by combining them. At this moment they are in separate boxes, one on top of the other, separated by a sheet of newspaper. Overnight, they should chew their way through the paper and find, through this combined endeavour, that they can get along fine together and there is no need for any conflict