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The days are warm and long. But there is that chance of a cold snap happening. You will notice the bees bringing in more nectar and pollen. The queen should be laying at full capacity and you’ll see your hive population growing.

As the beekeeper,  keep feeding your weaker hives. Stronger hives you shouldn’t be feeding. No supers should be on your weak hives. Inspect your hives, and look at the brood boxes. Can you find your queen? do you see eggs? how is the laying pattern? is it solid or scattered?  if it is not solid, you may want to replace your queen. If you are finding your weak hives continue to struggle, you may want to consider combining the weak hive with another.  Stronger hives are better at keeping away pests and diseases.  Swarm season is here!  swarming is the method bees use to grow their populations. It is not that you did a bad job with the hive, this is completely natural. So keep some extra hardware on hand so that if and when your hive swarms, you can capture it and provide a space for the swarm. To help prevent swarming, add one or two honey supers to your hive to give the hive more room and feel less cramped.

keep an eye on bearding and during inspections look for swarm cells!

Your hives should be at their full operation. You should see lots of nectar and pollen being brought to the hive. You should not be feeding your hive at this time. Brood chambers should be full of eggs and larvae. Make sure your brood boxes are not looking congested as this will encourage swarming.  Your bees should be busy filling honey supers. You can create a small entrance at your supers by drilling a 1″ hole in a super or by adding a small entrance spacer.

Bees should still be working hard filling up honey supers as the flows continue. Your hive could still swarm in June, so keep your swarm management or be prepared with extra hive bodies to place the swarm. Be on the lookout for swarms in your neighborhood too. You should see bees hanging out on the porch of your hive. Some may confuse this with the hive wanting to swarm. But the days are just getting too warm for them in the hive. So they’re just cooling off outside and may also be fanning cooling air into the hive. This gathering is also called “bearding”.

Continue monitoring your hive. The bees will need lots of water in the coming weeks. Be sure you provide a good water source someplace in your yard. You want to be a good neighbor and not have them bugging your neighbors’ pool or pet bowls.  You could even put a feeder on with just water, no sugar. Having plenty of water will also help your bees keep the hive cooler.

https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week

The nectar flow has or will be coming to an end. Your bees will search for nectar as best they can. They are beginning to prepare for the winter and get as much stored up as possible.

As the beekeeper, you will be harvesting soon. some may want to test and treat for mites this month. Not a great idea if you have honey supers on as you don’t want to contaminate your supers with any chemicals.  It would be best to first harvest your honey and then treat for mites either chemically or with powdered sugar.  If you are finding that the bees are not storing honey in your upper supers, you may be honey bound. Move the middle frames of honey UP to the next super replacing the lower ones with empty frames to encourage them to move up and fill more supers.

Extractor Loan Program

August is pretty much like July. Nectar supplies are becoming harder to find. Good plants to have planted in your bee yard would be Golden Rod and Aster plants. They are great sources of late summer nectar.

As the beekeeper, Take off your supers, it’s time to harvest. Maybe consider leaving one honey super on the hive for your bees. Do you really need all the honey? it will give them extra stores for the winter and also help eliminate any ’emergency winter feedings’.  Some beekeepers will even store full honey frames for either cut honeycomb or for feeding the hive in January by replacing empty honey frames with saved honey frames. it is best to feed your bees their own food.  Continue to monitor your hive for mites. you could treat after you have harvested your honey supers. How did your queen perform this summer?  This would be an opportunity to requeen if necessary.