My wife told me it's the best year ever for our beans.

By the way, a nearby neighbour was going to plant some beans where she had
grown them last year but saw those plants growing again - her husband had
not dug up the old plants - so she left them and she too has had a super
crop. Runner beans are perennials so why not leave them in? If there's
no
hard frost they'll come up again.

I dug mine up, and stored them in dry earth in the greenhouse over the
winter.
They have done very well this year. Previously I left them in the ground but
they rotted.
A word of caution, even in the greenhouse they were very slow to get
started, even
after I potted them up and coddled them. Runners grown from beans beat them
into growth.
My uncle also tried planting his old runner bean roots out, but they failed
to activate.
All in all not a guaranteed method. I think my technique of overwintering
them in dry
eart in a greenhouse, then potting them up and bringing them on still in the
greenhouse
is probably the most failsafe method.

Andy.