Summer in the apiary
In mid-summer make sure your bees have room to store nectar and honey and prepare your extracting equipment. Plan for healthy colonies next year by monitoring queens and brood comb condition. Be aware of threats from varroa, wasps and Asian hornets.
In the apiary
Give the bees plenty of room to store incoming nectar, adding new supers before each existing one is filled by bees (not honey). This gives the bees time to build or repair comb and space to store nectar before it is processed into honey.
A good flow is an opportunity to try for comb honey. Use empty tight-fitting super frames, or frames with a starter strip of thin foundation, and alternate them between drawn super frames to encourage regular combs.
Avoid travel-staining of comb honey by the bees by marking the frames so that you know which are for cut comb, removing them as soon as the whole comb is sealed. Keep your best frame for the autumn shows.
Some colonies might yet swarm. Keep up regular brood inspections, though frequency might drop depending on the colony condition.
Chop back any long grass or weeds that have grown up close to the entrance of hives – but carefully, probably best when bees aren’t flying.
Queens and honey
Monitor the health and egg-laying performance of young queens. Which ones will make good replacements for old or underperforming queens?
Do you need to replace any of your queens? Populous colonies can still be split to produce new colonies with time to build up before winter.
Check the condition of brood frames in your hives. Old or damaged combs should have been moved to the outside of the brood nest throughout the season. Replace any poor or old comb with frames of foundation so that the bees have time to draw comb ready to hold winter stores.
In most areas, the main crop is usually ready for extraction in late July/early August. Check that your extracting equipment is in good order before it is needed. Plan how you will clear bees from the supers – do you need a new bee brush or clearer boards?
Wash honey buckets and make sure each has a matching lid that fits. Order more if you think you will need them – don’t wait until the harvested honey is sitting in the extractor!
Use a refractometer to check water content of extracted honey before sealing in buckets.
Pests and diseases
When honey has been extracted, perform a full brood disease check. Shake the bees from every brood frame and look for signs of AFB and EFB.
Watch for wasps. Reduce hive entrances before wasps become a problem – it is hard to deter them once they have found a way in.
Any Asian hornet queens will now be confined to the nest. Workers might be seen hawking outside hives. Report any suspected sightings immediately via smartphone apps.
Keep monitoring for varroa. Levels can be high at the end of July. If a colony needs treating, this is best done as soon as the honey is removed. Order your preferred varroa treatment so it can be used as soon as needed.
Remember to record the use of varroa treatments according to the rules set out by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate.
In the garden, keep deadheading flowers to encourage late flushes.
Richard Rickitt, Co-editor
Richard Rickitt is an award-winning author and co-editor of BeeCraft, the UK’s best-selling beekeeping magazine, read by beekeepers and entomologists around the world. He has been keeping bees for more than twenty years and keep hives for a number of commercial and private clients. Richard is beekeeper at Westonbirt, the National Arboretum, and he teaches beekeeping courses in the UK and abroad.
