Getting ready for Winter?

Well here we are, its the 7th October and the it should be getting colder and the bees should be preparing for the upcoming Winter.  Instead its 20C, sunny and the bees are bringing in so much that I am adding supers.
This has been without doubt the best summer season that I can remember, most colonies and nucs sold, most Queens successfully reared and mated and despite my focus on producing colonies the best honey yield.  As always my colonies will be going into Winter as strong as I can possibly make them, and as I do not lose colonies through the Winter I have always believed that the bigger the colony at the start of Winter the more chance it has of surviving until Spring.

This frame is fairly typical of all my colonies, there are 6 or 7 frames like this in each hive, and as you can see in the background the hive is heaving with bees.There are still drones in each hive, there is still drone brood.
I have not seen that before at this time of year, usually the drones have been driven out by mid September.

As each hive is opened the air is thick with the smell of ivy honey and there are clouds of bees in the air, it looks and feels like May.  I was going to put mouseguards on this weekend, but I think I will postpone that for at least a week.