August already

The long spell of hot weather has given way to cooler and fresher temperatures.  That will improve the bees' temper and ours.  The nectar flow has all but gone and the wasps have arrived, so we need to start removing the supers and extracting the honey.
We like wasps in the spring.  They collect grubs and pests in the garden, carrying them off to their nest and feeding to their larvae.  These in turn produce honeydew for the adults to consume.  But now their annual lifecycle is nearing its end, with the nests producing one last batch of drone and queen wasps, and the workers start looking for an alternative source of food.  Ooh look, a beehive!  To quote Burglar Bill, "I'll have that!"
A big strong honeybee colony is well able to defend itself from these stripey attackers.  The bees line up in rows outside the hive entrance and fight them off.  But a small or weak colony can be ransacked and wiped out in a couple of days, so we have to reduce the hive entrance to a narrow slot which helps them repel the wasps one at a time.
What news of our Apidea queens?  One is now in a nuc and hopefully doing well, two others have failed and we have to wait for another fortnight to see if the last box has produced a good queen.
Oh yes, and it's time to insert the varroa boards in our hives and monitor the levels of this nasty little mite.  There were very few in June but we have to keep watch - they can build up rapidly as the population doubles every 3-4 weeks.
Never a dull moment, this beekeeping lark!