Once again, good weather. I'll actually get something planted again at this rate. I'm looking forward to getting the plot back to normal, but it's taken me so long to get back to normal that it's taking forever.

One hive which I'd left queenless has produced what appears to be a good laying queen; I need to see the workers she produces to assess her better, and she's not really much good till she's survived the winter! She started laying very fast, which is a good sign; no problems getting that one mated. Apart from that, things went wrong. I put cells into a hive with a laying queen, hoping the bees would replace her with a new one; it usually works, but this time it didn't. I split a second hive, and gave both halves queen cells. The original queen moved back into the original hive, leaving a weak, queenless split, which I've now united with another hive. That left me with a decidedly nasty-tempered hive to deal with for the second time. I'm not happy, but I've got that queen out this time. The original hive is currently raising a second batch of queens. For the first time ever, I've got no honey at all, but I should have more hives going next year, at least.