A Beekeepers Year

Spring

• Feeding – after a long hard winter bees will often have consumed most of the feed in their hives. To help them make it through until the first buds appear on trees and to raise brood and bees, liquid sugar and pollen substitutes are given to hives in need to help keep the bees going until they can begin to forage for themselves again.
• Remove winter covers
• Clean up dead hives that haven’t survived the winter called “dead outs”
• Add brood chamber (box) to give the bees more room to expand their numbers
• Ensure queens are healthy and productive
• Split hives and re-queen
• Move bees for pollination or to summer bee yards
  

Summer

• Add honey supers – boxes where bees store honey
• Constantly monitor hives for productivity and adjust as necessary
• Yard maintenance at bee yards
• Set up and service equipment and clean Honey House to begin extracting
• First crop of honey pulled off in late July/Early August
• Extract honey and process wax
  

Fall

• Pull off second crop of honey
• Extract honey and process wax
• Once honey is off treat bees for mites
• Combine weak hives together to make one strong hive
• Feed liquid sugar to get the bees through winter (liquid sugar won’t crystallize in the hive the same way honey will)
• Wrap bees for the winter
  

Winter

• Inside work – build new frames, boxes, repair and maintenance of equipment
• Check bees periodically
• Plan for next honey season