Hive maintenance calendar

Quiet yard, busy shop. On the Gulf Coast the bees still fly on warm days, but a cold snap plus empty stores will kill a hive faster than you think.

• Heft the hive. If it feels light, feed 2:1 syrup on a warm day — brood rearing can burn through 10 lb a week.
• Quick look only if it is 60°F, sunny, and calm: honey, pollen, brood, and bee numbers. Do not linger.
• Order queens, packages, or nucs for April if you have not already.
• Repair, scrape, and paint woodenware. Check stored supers for wax moths.
• Windbreak on the winter side. Tote stands help, but a north wind still finds the entrance.
• Mite check if you can do it without chilling the cluster; treat only if the count says so.
• A medium frame holds about 3–3½ lb of honey; a deep holds 5–6 lb. Know what you are hefting.

Pollen starts coming in on warm days — that means brood is moving. This is still an easy month to starve a hive that looks busy at the entrance.

• Confirm a queen-right colony and decent stores on a 60°F sunny day. Keep the box open as little as possible.
• Combine anything under about two frames of bees. Weak now rarely makes spring.
• Finish mite treatments early enough that they are off before the April flow.
• Feed 2:1 if stores are thin. Brood eating honey plus a freeze is how January survivors die in February.
• Level the stands after winter heave. A little forward tilt so rain runs out.
• Open or widen entrance reducers late in the month if it warms and the doorway is congested.
• Good month to move hives at night or on a cold day while stores are still light.
• Paint and inventory supers so you are not scrambling in March.

Build-up month. Eggs laid now become the foragers that hit the April flow. Swarm season is waking up whether you are ready or not.

• Full inspection on a calm day above about 55°F: stores, brood pattern, pests, and room for the queen to lay.
• Feed if the flow has not started. An expanding colony can starve in March.
• Give space — reverse double deeps if the queen is upstairs, pull swarm cells, add a super once medications are off.
• Splits and new queens if you planned them. Combine remaining weak colonies.
• Air mothballed supers several days before they go on a hive.
• Clean bottom boards, scrape burr comb and extra propolis, replace wrecked frames.
• Deadouts: clean them up. Burn comb and boxes from any American foulbrood kill.
• Have equipment painted and ready for packages and splits. Plan to have supers on by early April.

Honey flow starts here. Packages and queens show up. Swarming and supering are the two jobs that decide your year.

• Keep empty comb in the brood nest so the queen can lay. Pull swarm cells. Set swarm traps.
• Supers on before you need them. When bees are working 6–8 frames in a super, add the next one.
• Install packages and queens as they arrive, or make nucs from strong colonies early in the month.
• Do not feed 1:1 once honey supers with drawn comb are on — that is how you get sugar honey.
• Leave the brood nest alone as much as you can. Watch stores on nucs and new packages.
• A nuc: two frames of brood and bees, one of pollen and honey, foundation on the outsides, then a queen.
• Keep at least two frames of honey per frame of brood in the hive body until the flow is truly on.
• No medications in any box that will be harvested as honey.

Main flow and still swarmy. Chinese tallow is the big nectar plant on this coast. Stay ahead of the boxes.

• Check supers weekly. Do not wait for one to be full before adding another.
• If they are making honey, leave the brood box alone. Still glance for swarm cells and room under an excluder.
• No medicating this month.
• Keep feeding nucs and packages. Entrance reducers on small colonies so the big yards do not rob them.
• Check swarm traps. Order jars and lids if you are going to pull honey in June.
• Early full supers can come off, get extracted, and go back on to be refilled.
• Move nucs into full-size equipment as they outgrow the box.

The main flow winds down through June and is typically over by early July. Harvest when frames are about three-quarters capped, on a dry warm day.

• Pull capped supers. Leave the bees enough for the summer dearth that follows.
• Get extractor, buckets, and lids clean before the rush. Wet supers go back on for the girls to lick out.
• Watch beetles on pulled comb — do not leave honey sitting open.
• New colonies can still be started, but they will need more feed than April starts.
• Robbing starts as the flow fades. Reduce entrances on weak hives and do not spill syrup in the yard.
• Ways to clear bees from supers: fume board in heat, escape board (extra trip), brush, bee blower, or smoke.
• This is the Brazoria calendar the club teaches: harvest can begin in June; the big nectar push is normally done by early July.

Extraction month, then heat. After the flow, the yard turns into water, ventilation, mites, and not starving in the dearth.

• Finish pulling and extracting what is capped. Return wet supers for cleanup, then store them right.
• Store empty comb with paradichlorobenzene moth crystals — not naphthalene mothballs, which ruin wax and kill bees later.
• Water, every day. Shade if you can. Crack lids or use screened inner covers for airflow.
• Mite counts are climbing. Sample, then treat if you are over threshold.
• Heft for stores. If they are light, start feeding. Bees starve in July on the Gulf Coast.
• Freeze empty drawn comb a few days before storage to kill wax-moth larvae.
• Keep the crystal stacks sealed and check monthly — when the crystals are gone, so is the protection.
• Keep inspections short. Open boxes in a dearth start robbing.

Hot, dry, and lean. Finish the honey work early, then protect the winter bees you have not raised yet.

• Finish extracting in the first part of the month. Leave fall honey for the bees — it is usually not the jar you want.
• Treat for varroa if the count is up. An alcohol wash around 5 mites per 100 bees means treat now.
• Combine weak colonies. A weak box in August becomes a beetle and wax-moth factory.
• Water and ventilation. Keep the yard clean — burr comb on the ground invites small hive beetles.
• If the brood box has fewer than about two frames of honey, start feeding. They can still starve in August.
• Melt or freeze cappings. Wet cappings can go back to foragers for a day or two — not more than three, or moths move in.
• Store cleaned supers cool, dry, and sealed with moth crystals. Tape cracks.
• Think about fall requeening for a hive that will actually winter.

A short fall flow from goldenrod and asters on a good year. This is the last easy window to fix queens, mites, and stores before winter bees are in the box.

• Finish any leftover extracting. Store clean supers for winter.
• Mite check and treat with supers off. Decisions you skip now show up as deadouts in January.
• Replace failing queens. Combine weak with strong.
• Keep water on, and feed nucs or light colonies.
• A solid five-frame nuc made the first week of September will often winter and make a spring crop.
• Strong hives may store a little surplus on the fall weeds — most years we leave it for the bees.
• Get extra drawn comb on before the third week if you are trying to bank winter stores.

Fall flow tapers toward frost. Button the yard up: mites, stores, entrances, and no more weak colonies going into winter alone.

• Mite check before and after any treatment. Finish medicating this month.
• If the brood box has fewer than two frames of honey, feed 2:1.
• Pull queen excluders so the cluster can move. Put entrance reducers on.
• Combine weak hives. Tilt stands so fall rain runs out, not in.
• Order spring queens, nucs, or packages, and any woodenware you want to build this winter.
• Keep the yard clean — no burr comb on the ground.
• Check stored supers; replenish moth crystals if they have vanished.

Take your losses now. A light or queenless colony in November rarely becomes a good February hive.

• Entrance reducers on. Excluders off. Cluster in one or two boxes — not a tower of empty comb.
• Heft monthly. Minimum: a couple frames of honey in the brood nest. Feed if the back of the hive feels light.
• Combine anything that is not strong enough to cover its stores. Kill the worse queen and stack.
• Windbreak on the entrance if a north wind blows straight in. Screen bottoms can stay.
• Paint, assemble, and order for spring. Check moth crystals on stored comb.
• Keep a couple empty frames toward the outside walls so the cluster is not packed against cold honey it cannot reach.
• Treat mites if you still need to; some fumigants want the screen bottom closed off for the treatment window.
• Rotate out old dark comb when you are in there anyway.

Leave them alone. Heft, feed if light, and use the shop days for next year.

• Do not tear the cluster down. Lift the back of the hive. If it is light, feed.
• Assemble and paint boxes and frames. Confirm moth crystals are still in the stored comb.
• Sweep dead drones and winter-kill off the stands so beetles and ants are not invited later.
• Place or confirm spring queen and package orders.
• Note what worked and what to change. January 1 the calendar starts over.
• A windbreak still matters on the rare hard freeze.
• If you must look, pick a warm still afternoon and be fast.