Early next morning

The next morning Steve & Gil returned through the pouring rain and mud to feed our new arrivals with "ambrosia" that Bill had kindly left us.

We were accompanied by Rosie Foster, who had helped us apply for the Co-op funding.

We only had 2 beesuits with us, but Rosie bravely joined us anyway. You can see her bare finger in one of the photos!  But our bees remain very calm indeed.

We tried out several new feeding methods today. We took a couple of "feeding stations" from Steve's chickens, and filled them with some syrup. We placed lots of straw in the syrup to stop the bees from falling in.

We also filled some 'takeaway tubs' and placed one in each hive - hoping that would keep them happy till the weather improves.  They certainly were a bit active, but most of the colonies remain 'swarmed up' around their queens at the end of the hives.