Sorted.

courtesy bushcraftsurvivalskills blog

Finally. Have managed to get the beehives sorted for winter. And yes, we did have to endure a torrential downpour in the process (me and the bees, that is).

Not as much in the way of honey stores built up this summer as I'd like, but managed to close down the WBC with 2 brood boxes and 12+ brood frames, most full, most capped, and with 8 frames partially filled left over for me!
- and the TBH is looking better than a few weeks ago stores-wise but put a syrup feeder on here and made sure bars with fondant feed spaces for the winter every 4 or 5 bars across. The swarm which had moved into one of the empty hives has vanished so at least I'll only have 2 colonies to worry about getting through the winter...

So fingers crossed we get to the spring with 2 colonies intact!
Nite-nite Bees.