Bee-keeping Calendar
January
- Make or order hive parts, equipment and supplies required for the season. Order bees or
queens.
- Keep hive entrances clear of dead bees.
- In snow-free areas, gently tip the colony forward to gauge its weight.
- If light, supplemental sugar syrup may be applied. Limit disruption of colony as much as possible.
- If using a frame feeder, carefully crack the inner cover and slide sideways, pour the room-temperature syrup.
- Add a floating device to prevent bees of drowning. Don’t open hives and disrupt the winter cluster.
February
- Apply pollen patties to stimulate brood rearing
- Make sure that ingredients are all digestible.
- Non-digestible materials may cause dysentery and stimulate Nosema disease.
- When the weather is warm at the end of the month, inspect the top box and look for bee brood, pollen and food reserves.
- Don’t bother searching for the queen when eggs are visible.
- Determine mite levels by installing a strip (Apivar or Apistan) and a sticky board for 24 hours may
March
- Register apiary location with Ministry of Agriculture
- Bees will start flying intermittently in warmer parts of BC, bringing in pollen.
- When weather permits, take hives apart and clean floorboards.
- If no bees in the bottom brood chamber, remove, sort combs, clean, repair and paint where necessary.
- Check for eggs and brood to confirm a laying queen. Install entrance reducer.
- Continue stimulative feeding of syrup. Ensure sufficient pollen stores or provide pollen patties.
- Feed warm, thick syrup. Prepare sugar syrup by adding 3 parts sugar to two parts hot water
- Sometimes 2:1
- Check for diseases in colony
- If Brood’s disease is found, use antibiotics to treat when confirmed
- Check for Varroa mites in colony
- If tracheal mites are suspected, apply formic acid treatments
April
- Packaged bees arrive
- After hiving, reduce hive entrances to 8 cm.
- Check Brood chambers of wintered colonies
- Should be reversed
- Check all hives, whether wintered or packages, for queens and stores every 10-14 days.
- Feed syrup as required and replace queens if necessary.
- If the bee package is placed on foundation only, feed a minimum of 1 gallon of sugar syrup every week and pollen patties every two weeks.
- Continue checking all hives for Varroa mites and Brood chambers
- Around once a month
May
- Continue feeding syrup as necessary and examine colonies for disease regularly
- Stop feeding syrup when bees bring in nectar.
- Check hives for queen swarm cells, disease, stores and space requirements.
- Prevent or control swarming
- If a swarm emerges, and no additional colony is required, return the swarm to the hive from which it came.
- Kill old queen and install a queen cage with a purchased queen.
- Alternatively, kill the old queen and allow colony to raise own queen.
- Remove all queen cells except one after 11-12 days. New queen will emerge on day 13.
- Replace frames with 10% drone cells/more worker comb/full sheets of foundation.
- If colony started from package, add a second brood chamber as soon as bees have begun to occupy the outside frames of the first brood chamber.
- Use drawn combs when available or a super of foundation with one or two drawn combs in the middle.
- These combs may be removed from the bottom brood chamber and replaced with foundation.
- Add supers of combs or foundation as required to provide room for expanding bee population and for the storage of surplus honey.
- If a queen excluder is used, place it over the second brood chamber. Do not use a queen excluder if foundation is used in the third box.
- Test for Varroa mites by choosing few random colonies in the apiary
- When mite levels are high (approx. 50+ on sticky board after 24 hours), remove honey supers and apply recommended numbers of Apistan or Apivar strips.
- After a few days, remove strips and replace honey supers.
June
- Continue regular hive checks for queen performance, swarm cells, stores, disease, and sufficient space.
- Reverse brood chambers when bottom chamber is underutilized. Do not use antibiotics when honey supers are on.
July
- Nectar flows are at their maximum!
- Add supers as necessary.
- Some geographic regions, extraction begins
- Supers should be removed and honey extracted as soon as combs are two-thirds capped.
- In areas of high production and where the flow extends to mid-August, extracted combs should be returned to the hives.
- Test for Varroa in randomly selected colonies.
- Be(e) aware of colonies with unusual population expansion may be receiving large numbers of Varroa infested bees from collapsing colonies nearby
August
- From the middle to the end of the month, install entrance reducers to prevent robbing by bees and wasps
- DO NOT spill syrup as this may initiate robbing.
- By the second half of month, take off all supers containing honey in excess of what is required for wintering.
- When removing honey supers, and when the honey flow is over or temporarily ceased, remove supers in early morning or near sunset to prevent robbing.
- Colonies may be requeened with young laying queens following the removal of honey.
- Feed sugar syrup when requeening.
- If weather remains warm, substitute solid entrance reducers with fine wire-mesh barriers (except for the 2-inch opening).
- After honey supers have been removed, always test for Varroa. Apply control products as needed.
September
- Finish extracting. Check all hives for wintering needs.
- Select hives suitable for wintering.
- Do not attempt to winter weak colonies, queenless colonies, colonies with a poor queen, or one that has little or no pollen.
- Hives require 50-80 pounds of honey (depending on area) and pollen stores equal to two combs filled on both sides with pollen.
- When honey stores are insufficient, supplement with sugar syrup.
- Feeding too late prevents bees from inverting the sugars, evaporating the moisture,and properly storing and capping the material.
- Testing for Varroa is optional.
- Test for Nosema by submitting a sample of adult bees or fecal scrapings. If confirmed, add fumagillin to syrup
October
- Lower Mainland finishes feeding by end of October
- Entrance openings are adjusted for winter according to regional requirements.
- Complete cleanup of apiary.
- Test for Varroa.
- Last opportunity to determine Varroa mite levels!
- In case treatment is needed, don’t apply formic acid because of low temperatures. Apply strip formulations for 6 week treatment period (as per label instructions) or apply Oxalic acid treatment in late November.
November
- Equipment should be sorted and stored or set aside for cleaning and maintenance.
December
- Continue sorting and maintaining equipment.
- Order new equipment and supplies for next year
- Assemble new hive equipment