Month

What to DoEquipment Needed
JanuaryReduce the hive entrance and check for blockage from buildup of dead bees or snow. Be sure roof is secure. Emergency feeding if necessary. Record your observations for each hive rather than relying on memory. Take the time off to read a good book and attend local bee club meetings. Place your packaged bees order for this year.
-Bee Suit
-Smoker
-Hive Tools
-Books
- Hive Feeders
-Entrance Reducers
-Package Bees & Queens

February
Medicate at least 60 days prior to adding supers. As the cluster grows, shift frames with eggs to the center and frames of sealed brood to the outer position. Add brood chambers with drawn comb to the strongest hives. Reverse double brood chambers to move the empty frames to the top and center. This will stimulate growth of the hive.
-Bee Suit
-Smoker

MarchDue to massive increase in bee population and food consumption, consider feeding. Continue the frame rotations and begin to alternate the frames according to brood age.-Bee Suit
-Smoker
-Hive Tools
-Hive Feeders
- Feed & Supplements

April
Remove the entrance reducers. In order to prevent swarming: add supers, spread out the frames with brood, cut queen cells, limit barriers to bee movement upward into the supers. Consider placing swarm traps in the Apiary to catch any swarms. Replace any queens due to old age, temperament, or bad brood pattern.
-Bee Suit
-Smoker
-Hive Tools
-Swarm Traps
-Supers

May
Add a queen excluder, and place honey supers. Give them plenty of room to bring in the pollen and nectar, but toward the end of the nectar flow you will want to crowd the bees to finish out partially filled supers. Check for hive beetles and install traps if necessary
-Bee Suit
-Smoker
-Hive Tools
-Queen Excluder
-Frames
-Foundation
-Supers
-Hive Beetle Traps
JuneBegin to take off frames of capped honey and replace with empty frames/foundation. Place bee escapes prior to removing entire supers.
-Bee Suit
-Smoker
-Hive Tools
-Frames
-Foundation
-Supers
-Bee Escapes

July
The nectar flow will continue this month and you may even find your bees festooning (a group of bees hanging onto each other in a cluster) along the side of a hive. Some say they are cooling themselves. Add more supers as needed.
-Extracting Equipment
-Containers
-Labels
AugustThe hive begins to slow down as the nectar flow decreases.


September
The hive population drops and the drones begin to die off. Harvest the remainer of your honey crop, but remember to leave the hive with at least 60 lbs. for use over the winter. Near the end of the month, feed and medicate. Install Apistan strips or CheckMite (for 42 days)
-Apistan
-CheckMite Wax Moth Treatment

October
The bees are preparing for winter. Add any necessary insulation or windbreaks and remove the Apistan or CheckMite strips. Store your equipment.


November
Not much to do this month. The bees are clustering together on colder days. A good time for you to take a vacation as well. Also a good time to think of all the terrific honey-related gifts you could prepare for Christmas gifts: Bottle some of your honey in decorative containers and tie with a festive ribbon, make candles with your beeswax
-Books

December

There is not much to do this month for the bees. Read a good book and. Consider ordering some goodies to include with those Christmas gifts to friends and family. Enjoy the holidays!
-Books
-Gifts
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