The few surviving overwintering onions were flopping over, so I lifted them to dry. I'm not sure whether it's damp or cold that gets then, probably the former. I don't have much luck with these! I noticed that a couple of my Purple Wight garlic were flopping over, rather early, but I lifted them all anyway, and realised that I got them mixed up with the Albigensian Wight when I planted them. Those were lifted far too early as a result, but never mind. I'm left wondering what sort of mix the Albigensian Wight rows will turn out to be. Three of the bulbs had advanced white rot, but it's been the same every year since I took the plot on, and it never seems to get any worse.

This pot of Cyclamen purpureum seed (from Chiltern Seeds) has been sitting in a cold frame since autumn 2007. It's finally produced a couple of seedlings. The bigger of the two has been up for several weeks, and I only spotted the second today. Hopefully, there may be more to come.

From the minutes of the 337th meeting of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP), held on 12 May 2009:

5. Agenda Item 5: Applications for the use of ‘Forefront’ and ‘Runway’ (now known as ‘Mileway’) water in oil emulsion formulations containing 30 g/l aminopyralid and 100 g/l fluroxypyr, as an agricultural herbicide and horticultural/industrial herbicide on grassland and amenity grassland [ACP 7 (337/2009)]

5.1 Members considered the applications for the re-instatement of approvals for products containing aminopyralid.

5.2 Members agreed that the applicant had taken all reasonable steps to manage manure contaminated with residues, through the proposed stewardship campaign, training and monitoring. However, there was some concern about the practicalities of the programme which would need to be addressed and closely monitored as part of the stewardship programme.

5.3 Members noted that aminopyralid was persistent in ground water, and that further confirmation of the effect of irrigating vulnerable crops from ground water sources was required.

5.4 Members were also concerned that approval in Europe could result in UK stewardship measures being by-passed. Further information was requested from the applicant about the level of approval and stewardship requirements across the EU

5.5 Subject to satisfactory resolution of these outstanding questions, members were minded to advise Ministers to re-instate approvals.

So the stuff's on the way back unless there's enough of a protest to force a re-think. I can only suggest that manure should be avoided altogether unless you know the animals and what they've been fed on, as this is likely to become a perennial problem.

It's tipping it down with rain, so it looks like a day to concentrate on the annual nightmare of GCSE marking. I did at least manage to check the beehives yesterday, though I got no further. Hive 1 is looking good, with 6 1/2 frames of brood. I only got two queen cells in the first batch I raised, so I gave both to Hive 3. For some reason they broke one down, leaving them with a single cell. I'm not happy with that; I like to give them two or three. It should be OK though. Hive 4 is on five frames of brood, and has laid up a second frame of eggs for me. I've now given that to Hive 5, to requeen itself with.

There are always a lot of bees drinking from this puddle when the sun's out. I've been keeping it topped up because I don't want them going elsewhere and scaring the neighbours. They like very shallow water in the sun, presumably because it's warmer. When I shaded the puddle one day, they abandoned it till it was back in the sun. They'll often go for very dirty water, possibly for extra mineral or organic content.

The elephant garlic is flourishing as always. The scapes need to come off in order for the bulbs to reach maximum size.

I've just planted out some of the peas. These are Salmon Flowered, Robinsons' Purple Podded (so called because it originated from Robinson's Seeds), Lancashire Lad, another purple podded variety, and Ne Plus Ultra. I had to replant Magnum Bonum and Alderman so I'll add those in a week or two. As you see, I use wigwams made of 8-foot poles, with string wound round to give the tendrils something to grip.

These are my walking onions. They were grown from full-sized bulbs, and are now waist-high, quite a bit bigger than last year, and dwarf the row of good-sized Purple Wight garlic next to them. I've found a US website (http://alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?) which has someone who knows a bit about this stuff, so I'm hoping to find out what sort I have. Apparently there are several types.

I've just joined the Bloggers' Seed Network (http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?page_id=65). I'll be putting seed up for swapping later in the season, when I've had a chance to save some fresh! There's also a lot of swapping at Allotments4all (http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/).

The swarm that moved in (now Hive 1) has eggs or brood on five frames. They're Standard Nationals, a third smaller than my normal 14x12's, but it's not bad for the first week's egg laying. Hive 3 is staying put at 4 frames of brood, and Hive 4 is up to five. I've messed that one around a lot this week though, getting eggs from it for queen raising. The real test will be where it is in three weeks' time. Hive Five is making queen cells as expected. It's also in a bad temper - not surprisingly, a queenless hive always is. They kept buzzing me, and several obviously meant business. I'll be glad to get that one requeened.

I potted up sixty sweet corn (Lark), and I've got the same to do again in a week or so. I've planted replacement seeds of Alderman peas, since the ones I saved were no good, and I've got more Magnum Bonum as well, since they didn't germinate too well. My saved Ne Plus Ultra were hopeless, and the seeds I bought in are just coming up. I think the problem has to have been a result of the wet weather when I harvested the seed, as they just rotted in the pots. They're all good Victorian maincrops, though my favourite is Magnum Bonum.

I've planted two lily species this week; formosianum and philippinensis. They're both immediate epigeal, which means they come up quickly, with the seed leaf emerging from the soil. So hopefully there won't be any complications. I've got some fresh Hellebore seed to plant as well, via a swap. Fresh seed is easy; old seed is a tossup. I have old seed of foetidus 'Wester Flisk', Helen Ballard hybrids, and H x sternii, all from Chiltern Seeds. They're good, but it's inevitably not fresh. They've been sitting in pots for a couple of weeks, and there's no knowing when, and whether, they're going to come up.

I discovered today that a swarm has moved into Hive 1. It's not exactly unexpected, since I noticed several weeks ago that the hive was being staked out by strange bees. The swarm is a fair size, fills half a National standard broodbox, and has eggs on a frame and a half already. This shows that it is a 'prime swarm', the first to issue from a hive, with the old, mature queen. the swarms I got last year were 'casts', headed by virgins which took a couple of weeks before they started laying. I left them badly confused, as I gave them a new entrance on the other side, where I really want it to be, and closed off the one they were using.

Hives 3 and 4 are as before, with 4 and 4 1/2 frames of brood respectively. Hive 4 is taking its time laying up the frame I gave them to raise queens on. It has a few eggs though, so it should be ready at last in a couple of days. I'll really be disturbing Hive 5 then, so I've left it alone for the time being.

Apart from that, I've been potting up tomatoes, and planting out broad beans.

I'm having problems with a few of the seeds I saved last year. All the pumpkin seed is empty. It looks OK, apart from being a bit thin compared with the old seed. But it's not viable at all. The flower must have been pollinated, or there would never have been a pumpkin. But something, very likely to do with the weather, went wring, and it didn't form viable seed. I've heard of the problem before. I've got very poor germination from two peas, Magnum Bonum and Alderman. I harvested the seed in the worst of the weather last year, and I can only imagine I didn't get it dried fast enough. Once planted, it just rotted. I've re-ordered both; fortunately, I managed to find a site in Ireland that does Magnum Bonum, and takes Paypal. http://brownenvelopeseeds.com/index.php/ . It's not an easy one to find.

I've split Hive 5. leaving the queen at the bottom. and the brood, apart from one frame, at the top. All the flying bees will have returned to the bottom, leaving only the young nurse bees at the top. This is now effectively queenless, and should raise queen cells. Then I break them down, and give them eggs from Hive 4; I've already put an extra frame in the middle of the broodnest, with only an inch of comb on it, for this. the frame will then go into Hive 5, and since they won't have any other eggs or young larvae by that time, they'll raise the queens I want from it. I can then requeen hives 3 and 5. The queens won't mate truly, but since the drones come from unfertilised eggs, they'll be of my strain. A second batch of queens should then mate within strain.

I finally managed to finish mulching the potatoes yesterday. The amount of grass cuttings being delivered is rising week by seek, so I'm unlikely to run shrt again this year. The only problem now is what collecting it does to my back!

One of my empty hives has been staked out by strange bees. They're all striped, and while Hive 5 has bees of that colour, only about half are striped. I spotted them defending the hive against a black bee, with two madly chasing it. That's a sign that a swarm is likely to move in. They may yet decide on better accommodation elsewhere, but these days they're unlikely to find it. The hollow trees have mostly been removed, and modern building methods leave no room for bees in the roof. I hope they do arrive; I need to populate those empty hives, and a May swarm has plenty of time to build up and produce some honey before winter.

I checked the hives after school. Hive 3 still has brood on 3 1/2 frames, which 4 has increased to the same amount, with quite a bit of drone brood present. Hive 5 is as it was last week, but there are noticeably more bees on the frames. This is good news, as I need lots of young bees before I can raise queens. There are still very few drones though.

One of the drones I did see had a crumpled wing. This'll be due to a virus, which is spread by varroa. I've only seen it before when hives have been overwhelmed. This one was treated in January with oxalic acid, and with Apiguard a couple of weeks ago. I know for a fact that the mite load is no heavier than that in my other hives, and none of the others show a trace of it.

Another odd thing is that a couple of weeks ago, there was a small knot of bees with crumpled wings outside the hive, and every one was jet black. Over half the bees in the hive have a yellow stripe, showing that they're hybrids. I haven't seen a single crippled bee on the frames with a stripe either. I can only presume that the bees of a single patriline (ie from eggs fertilised with sperm from a single drones - queens mate about 6 - 12 times) are particularly susceptible.

Hive 5 now has brood on six frames in the top box, but otherwise all three hives are very much where they were last week. Areas of brood are expanding steadily, and Hive 4 now has a large patch of capped drone brood. With a small number of workers supporting vary large numbers of brood, all three hives are obviously stretched to the limit. As a result, they're all very good-tempered; they only get stingy when there are unemployed older bees in the hives. I saw two drones in Hive 5, but that's all. They won't be ready for queen raising until there's a higher proportion of workers to brood, and a lot more drones.

I'm still smothering potatoes in grass cuttings, with only a relatively small amount of cuttings coming in so far, and Cara coming up fast.

I've just been through the hives. I came home from school with a splitting headache, and it's one way of distracting myself. Hive 3 still has 3 1/2 frames of brood, but the area covered is still increasing. Hive 4 is on 2 1/2 frames. Both of those will have a lot more bees hatching out in a week or two, so I'm expecting more expansion soon. The queen in Hive 5 has been really busy, with big areas of eggs and young brood on five frames in the 14x12 box I put on top of the original standard broodbox. I don't like standard National broodboxes, they're on the small side. There will be masses of bees hatching out of that one in three weeks or so, which fits in nicely with my plans for an early round of queen raising.

If I use eggs from my best colony that should produce an instant improvement in temper in Hive 5, as this is controlled by substances given off by the queen. It won't deal with the following though. This is a tendency to buzz around people, and it's not only a nuisance, it leads to stinging as people panic. It's inherited by the individual worker, so at best it won't disappear until the last of the offespring of that queen dies. It may not vanish then, as the new queen will inevitably mate with drones from that hive, which I'm depending on for this round as they're the only ones I have so far. In that case, it'll be with us all season, as I won't be raising the second round of queens until all the drones from the first one have died off. Drones come from unfertilised eggs, so they're not affected by what their mother has mated with.

I was at the BBKA Spring Convention yesterday, at Stoneleigh, near Coventry. I got to talks on bee anatomy, queen raising and nosema. The latter is a serious bowel disease of bees, caused by a microscopic fungus. There's a new form, nosema ceranae, which has hopped across from the Asian Honey Bee, Apis cerana. One of the people doing the research on this was speaking; it may be extremely serious or it may not be, and it's such a recent discovery that nobody really knows yet. One thing is certain, it's spread round the world at an incredible rate, doubtless because of people moving bees around. I've always felt that this is a very bad idea, but it's almost impossible to stop, and even if it was, we'd still have swarms landing on ships and being carried all round the world.

Hives 3 and 4 are still expanding steadily; Hive 3 is on 3 1/2 frames, while 4 is still on 2 frames, but expanding the brood area on them. I'd be happier if it had a bigger broodnest as I'll need to take eggs out of it soon to raise queens. Mulching all the spuds is taking time, largely because it's doing my back in.

Hive 3 - the one I combined - has now settled down, with brood on 2 1/2 frames, and masses of eggs, showing a rapid expansion of the broodnest. That's what I like to see at this time of year; it means a lot more bees in three weeks' time. Hive 4 is still on two frames, but again with loads of eggs. Hive 5 is on six frames, the same as last week. A few drones have hatched, so I'll soon be able to raise queens. The dandelions are starting to flower, and there was lots of orange-yellow pollen from them coming in.

All the potatoes are now in, and I've started mulching them all with dead leaves. There are very few grass cuttings yet, but they should be coming in very soon with the warmer weather. It's at this stage that I need to watch my back; last year I strained it badly, and it restricted what I could do all season.

The Canbridge Gage is covered in bloom, with bees going the rounds of the flowers. Hopefully, I'll get a good crop to make up for last year, when it all rotted on the tree. There's a single flower on the Victoria plum I planted last year; hopefully, there will be a crop next year. After losing the first one I planted to the drought three summers ago, I could do with some noce big plums!

More bee problems; the queen in Hive 2 disappeared last week. I opened it to find no eggs or open brood. I saw her last week, and there were eggs then, but she must have just stopped laying, or there would still have been a little open brood when I looked. It was probably down to poor mating in the awful weather last year.

With Hive 3 dwindling fast, I combined the two. I suspect the problem there was a fungal disease, Nosema, though I did treat for it last autumn. Hopefully they'll pull through. It's infuriating though; if that queen had just lasted another couple of weeks, I'd have been able to raise a new one.

I've spotted that Hive 5 has more mites than the others, despite having been given the same oxalic acid treatment on the same day. It had quite a large patch of brood all winter, and they must have been in there. That explains the bees I keep seeing with crumpled wings due to a mite-vectored virus.

I've got most of the potatoes in now; Pink Fir Apple is the only one left. It's been hard going as a lot of the area has had to be dug before I could plant. I've put in a dozen tomato varieties, which are coming up merrily.

I had a seed swap parcel the other day from some of the people from Allotments4all; several of the toms came from there. I don't know what I'd do without that site, it's priceless. I'm getting beans, squashes and sweet corn as well, and I'll add some more toms before I send it on.

I was stung twice while I was planting potatoes this afternoon, one on each eye. That's Hive 5; I can't wait to get rid of that queen!

The bees are flourishing despite the cooler weather last week. Hives 2 and 4 now have big patches of brood on two frames, and look as though they're about ready to expand onto a third. Once they've got bees hatching from three, they build up pretty fast.

Hive three is also on two frames, but only with small patches of brood. It's expanded a bit since last week, but the number of bees is dwindling as the winter bees die off, and it's looking pretty weak. Hive 5 has five frames of brood, which is ridiculous for March. If we get a wet April they'd be in danger of starving with a decent amount of stores, never mind this year. The silver lining is that there's a good bit of drone brood now. The plan is to start queenraising at the beginning of May, by which time there should be plenty of drones in the hive.

The resulting queens will be crossmated, but never mind. Drones come from unfertilised eggs, so when I do my main queenraising at the end of August or the beginning of September, I'll have loads of drones of my strain, and no foreigners. So I should get well-mated queens at that point.

All the early spuds are in (Duke of York, Arran Pilot, First Earlies, and Charlotte, Second Early), and I'm about to start on the maincrops, Cara and Pink Fir Apple. I'm using a bulb planter, which is OK as long as the soil's not compacted, and a real pain to force in where it is. I'm putting loads in this year, and using them to sort out a rather weedy area. I'll get most of the ground elder out as they go in, and the rest when I lift the crop.

The bees show quite a change over the last few days, since it's been warm enough for them to be bringing in significant quantities of pollen from willow and blackthorn. A week ago, it was too cold for them to be flying, and they didn't like being opened at all. Serve me right for bothering them! The two colonies with my own queens were fine, but the other two were flying off the comb like mad, and trying to sting the whole time. Today, they weren't bothered by my intrusion at all.

They all had big patches of eggs and open brood, showing that the queens have been busy over hthe last few days. Hive 5 now has brood on five frames, the rest on 1 1/2 or 2. Hive 5 has a patch of capped drone brood. A drone pupa is a lot bigger than a worker, so the cells are larger, with domed cappings, and bulge well above the worker brood around them. As soon as I have a reasonable number of drones - which will be by the beginnig of May at this rate - I'll be able to raise new queens and replace the two I didn't breed myself.

Apart from that, all the onions are now in, and I've started planting the potatoes.

I've managed to emerge triumphantly from a clean Windows re-installation with everything still working. It's a job I hate, but I hadn't done it for several years, and the machine was getting badly cluttered.

I took advantage of the mild day to check the bees. Hive 5, as I expected, is expanding its broodnest merrily, with brood on three frames. The others aren't expanding at all yet; I wouldn't expect them to with no appreciable food supply available yet. Hive 5 was stingy, with bees jumping off the frames. All the more reasoin to requeen it ASAP. The only blessing is that a rapidly expanding colony is likely to have early drones. Once there are a reasonable number I can raise a new queen. She'll be crossmated, but drones come from unfertilised eggs, so they won't be affected, and I can hope for well-mated queens later in the season.

I had a proper look through the beehives this afternoon; they've all got from one to two and a half frames of brood, with varying sized patches on each frame. The colony I got in December is far and away the biggest (it would be with such a massive cluster). It still has the odd bee with shrivelled wings, indicating virus, but the number isn't increasing. I managed to get to the local Association AGM last night for a change, and got stuck on the committee. Apparently it's only a couple of meetings a year so it won't be onerous.

I've done a bit of digging as well; it's going much more easily now that patch of ground elder is dealt with.

The ground's been on the soggy side for digging this week, so I've spent a couple of days barrowing dead leaves to mulch the asparagus. I was trying to dig a patch which has been invaded by ground elder, and it's really hard going. Fortunately, most of it was done before the freeze, and another go at it should finish that.

Ground elder is the bane of my life; it's in the hedges, it comes through from the next plot, and there doesn't seem to be any effective way of controlling it organically. I was reduced to using glyphosate last year, along the hedge bottom, but I'm not sure how much difference it will have made.

Yesterday I did what I should have done the other day, and put an empty 14x12 broodbox with drawn comb on top of the box that Hive 5 is in. It's the only hive in a standard broodbox. The bees will move up into the new box over the next few weeks, and then I'll be able to take the old one away and melt the comb. That'll move them painlessly onto the stuff I use, with slightly smaller cells, and give them more space. Since I've yet to have one of my own strain swarm from the larger size (it's bound to happen eventually) I think it's well worth it.

Yesterday was sufficiently warm and springlike to go through the hives. the temperature was about 8-9 degrees, and while this goes totally against tradition, I've opened hives many times in colder weather than that, and have never seen any evidence that it did any harm.

All the hives had brood and eggs, showing that they all had laying queens within the last three days. That was what I wanted to know, and once I'd established that much, I didn't look any further. I can now relax and plan on the basis of starting the season with four hives!

Hives 2, 3 and 4 all had 3-4 frames of bees, and small patches of brood. All had a little capped brood, showing that some egglaying continued even in the very cold weather. Hive 5, the one I got in December, had a huge cluster almost filling the broodbox, and, from the look of it, several frames of brood. They gave me several stings, while none of the others even looked like stinging. I can't wait to requeen that one. I'll have to give some thought to its position, as it's right outrside the shed door. They didn't bother me once I'd taken my gear off, but they're in a perfect position to get me as I come out of the shed minus my veil!

I had to stay in today waiting for an engineer, as the heating system had broken down. The boiler turned out to be leaking, and it was dripping on bare wires. It's been made safre, but we've got nothing but a coupple of little convection heaters over the weekend. Meanwhile, I've got my proper computer up and running, which is a great relief after weeks with nothing but a slow laptop.

I did manage a quick walk round the allotments; the snow is going fast, and I've verified that the four colonies are all alive and looking good. My one and only decent native colony is looking particularly strong, despite having a queen entering her third season. I'd be in trouble if I lost her, as she's the only one which is going to give me the queens I want to raise.

This winter just seems to get worse. the snow's melting slowly, but there's more vile weather promised. It sounds like what local weather in Cornwall used to call 'precipitation', in other words, it could be anything. Predictably, I've been able to do absolutely nothing on the allotment. As far as I'm aware, four colonies of bes are still alive, but I haven't looked since the snow began. I' lost some snow pics once I get a chance, but I've still got computer problems.

My internet access is down at home due to a line fault which led to the computers switching off my broadband. it should be back up in a few days. Meanwhile, we've continued to have bad weather, with the plot either frozen or waterlogged.

One of the new bee colonies has died out, but the four survivors are all looking strong. If they come through the next few weeks, then they're likely to go through the season without problems.

Meanwhile, I've had enough of winter!

I've got all the hives rearranged on proper stands now. The swarm checks out as 'near-native', meaning that most of its characteristics are those of native UK bees, but there's a bit of a discrepancy here and there. In this case, the bees are very slightly banded, and the body hairs are too short. The bands are brown rather than yellow, and, importantly, the characteristics are consistent, being the same in every individual bee. That's close enough to a native stock to be worth keeping. I still need to check out the new colonies - a lot of the bees have yellow bands, indicating hybridisation, but that doesn't necessarily mean the other characteristics aren't right. Then I need to watch them next summer and see if they're showing signs of mite resistance.

My own strain detect mites in capped brood, open the cells, and clean out the larvae with the mites. Some strains groom the mites off each other, and damage them in the process. These aren't characteristics you want to lose through careless breeding!

I'm annoyed with myself. I had a look at the bees yesterday, and the small swarm (hive 1) has died out, apparently of starvation. I meant to get some candy on them to see them through, but I've been feeling so poorly I didn't get it done. It shows how much harm a couple of really bad summers can do; normally, there would be plenty of frames of honey to go round.

I had a close look at some of the bodies, and even after several generations, they still check out with all the characteristics of native bees. That, at least is good. I had expected to find more hybridisation, as with only a few hives, they can easily be influenced by genes from other local drones. either the queens mate selectively, or more likely, they consistently mate with drones from my own hives, without going further afield.

The next thing is to check out the bigger swarm (Hive 3). Superficially, they're rather browner then my own strain, but they do look like natives, or something reasonably close to it. A close look at the morphometry would settle that. It's a nice colony, and it works extremely well in cold weather, so I'm inclined to raise a couple of queens from it if it comes through the winter. But I do want to keep as near to a native strain as I can reasonably manage.

I've put one of the new colonies on the stand where Hive 1 was, and I've made a new stand - it's just a couple of breezeblocks on a paving slab. I need to organise a second one, then I've got all six onto permanent stands, out of the way, and safe from floods and rising damp.

The Pope makes me sick. He's not fit to be called 'Pope', the name means 'father', and he acts like the abusive sort. He labels and entire category of people (gays), good, bad and indifferent, and treats them like some sort of major existential threat. Maybe they are to his cosy fantasy world, but the rest of us live in reality.

What about warlords (I knew one, and it left me loathing the breed), greedy bankers and hedge fund managers, arms dealers, brutal dictators, lying politicians, and all the rest of the filthy crew who do the real damage? I suppose they're a more dangerous target to aim at; if you do, you have to start asking awkward questions.

I'm not sure religious escapism isn't as damaging as any of the above. It distracts people from real problems and real evils, tells them they're OK when they aren't, and offers the wicked a smokescreen. The church - the whole church, not just the RC's - needs to grow up and start dealing with the real world as a whole, instead of leaving the job to the few, while so many go on with the same shallow platitudes. As a member thereof, I'm entitled to be critical!

I got a new power supply unit installed in my main computer, only to find there are still problems. I think it's going to need a new motherboard at this rate. So I'm still stuck with the laptop. I haven't been well for a couple of weeks either, and between that and the weather, nothing's been happening at the allotment. The soil's frozen solid for one thing.

But I did get some new bees over the weekend. I got the monthly Association newsletter a few days ago, and there were a couple of colonies going free, a mile or so away. So I got in touch, and we moved them yesterday afternoon. The first one was very quiet, and not a bee emerged even when the floor came loose whle we were moving it. the second was totally different, they were mad at us, and came boiling out when I opened the hive at my end. I got a couple of stings today just taking the screenboard off the top.

I think the big difference is that the first is a small cluster, at the top of a double broodbox. So they had a long way to go to the entrance, and there weren't that many of them. the second is a much bigger cluster, with a lot more bees, in a single National broodbox. These are quite small, and as a result the bees are close to the entrance.

But they're sorted now. I've got to do an oxalic acid treatment shortly, then put candy on as a winter feed, since they're all so light. After that, it's just a matter of seeing how many are still alive next spring. Hopefully, it'll come a bit earlier than last year, as such a long winter followed by a dismal summer is rough on everything.

A few warm days hasn't helped much, as I haven't been feeling well at all. I did manage to open the beehives, as I found them all flying strongly, bringing in ivy pollen. Hive 1 has a small patch of eggs, while the others had no brood at all, apart from a few stray cells which were just hatching out. So they'd all been broodless during the last cold snap. I saw two of the queens in the broodless hives, so there's no reason to assume there's any problem there.

I won't open them in cold weather - received wisdom says not to open in winter at all, but with care, there's no harm done, and a lot can be learnt. I know very little about behavious in cold spells as a result, but this tells me a little more.

Most of the alliums are now in, apart from some of the garlic. A lot of the overwintering onions are showing, and just as well. I've been a bit worried, as if they don't come through before the winter sets in, they're a dead loss. I'm not bothering with autumn planted broad beans this year, due to the losses last spring. If I start them in February, and plant out when they're 2-3 inches high, they'll have a better chance if there's another very long winter.

I've had to leave this for a couple of weeks due to computer problems. I'm currently on a distressingly slow laptop while the main computer is down. The bees are fine, and the new queen s laying well. The bigger of the two swarms (Hive 3) is more active than any of the others in cool weather, and has been storing more honey. Obviously, that's a trait I need to encourage, so I'm just hoping it comes through the winter successfully. All the hives are still short of honey, and I'm still feeding.

I've planted overwintering onions, walking onions, and some of the garlic. Most of the potato beds have been dug over, and neither of the maincrops produced anything at all. that will have been due to late planting combined with early blight. I won't repeat that mistake!

We've just had an Open Day, combined with the Apple Day in the Botanical Gardens next door. I spent an hour manning a table in a nasty cold wind, had a wander round to warm up, and then had a look round the Botanical Gardens. The Tennis Club had some turn they'd lifted from one of the courts, so I had some of that; I might have a few more barrow loads if the weather's not too bad tomorrow, as there's loads there.

I've managed to check the hives today, despite mad preparations for Namissa's Eid party tomorrow. The good news is that Hive 1 has patches of brood on two frames. The bad is that it has almost no stores. I'll be feeding all winter at this rate, but at least it has a chance.

Hives 2 and 4 are also light, but at least they have some stores, and I'll keep feeding. They're strong enough to take the feed down at a decent rate, unlike hive 1. 3 is the only exception; it's pretty much full of stores. They've obviously been going like mad during the better weather.

Apart from the lack of stores they're all looking pretty healthy.