On Sunday morning I checked the hives at one site, all were good. Slowly capping the honey but not bringing too much in now compared to a week ago. The one nuc I have there has now got a laying queen in, I just hope see doesn't turn out to be a drone layer - there were only eggs in the cells, no larvae and nothing capped so I can't tell yet. I was getting on to the last hive and it had started spitting, nothing too bad I had taken the 5 supers off slowly looking to see how the capping was going. Once I got the QEX off and the first frame out there was a clap of thunder and it chucked it down and they went for me. I quickly checked the number of frames with brood on and that were eggs but in that process plus putting the supers back on I got stung 8 times , 4 on each elbow joint just above the end of my gauntlets.
I've just got back in from my other site and they're doing well, capping honey and still bringing some nectar in. On one hive which I put a drawn super on back on the 2nd of this month had already started capping some of that which was a surprise. I was debating at the time whether it was necessary to give them more space. The two hives I introduced two queens into from BS Honey on Tuesday last week were both laying well. Last week I knocked out what was probably a supercedure cell off the frame, today there were a couple, I left the uncapped one so hopefully she mates ok. I think I might be pushing my luck this late in the season, however there are still drones in the colonies and drone brood too albeit not a lot. Any suggestions? leave it and hope she gets mated and allow two Qs to over winter or knock it down now and allow them to sort her out in the spring?
In general I was pleasantly surprised with how big some colonies still are, one still had 10 frames of brood, but the average was 7 frames.
but thanks for the chuckle. 
