I visited the newly-marked-out (lottie rep who does these things was on holiday) lottie today with the bloke and his ma', and while (yippee!) the council have put a brand new water tank right at the bottom of it, they (d'oh!) haven't bothered filling in where the pipe comes out of the ground. It goes down a good foot or so. I can see that all the others have had that bit filled in, so no idea why they left mine, but it shouldn't be a hard task.

With one minor problem. A load of bees (not bumble or mason, that's about as far as I can tell) have made themselves a hive right down the bottom of it. I don't want to just fill it in and smother them all, but have no idea how to coax them out to safety - I don't want a foot-deep hole in my lottie long-term.

I know there's a few people on here who know a whole load more about bees than I do (I can write my knowledge on my pinkie-nail, and I have very small hands!) - anyone know what I can do about 'em?