Brian Fackler – Cornell University Master Beekeeper

• Make sure the bees have plenty of room to store nectar. A good guideline is to have an empty super on from mid-May through mid- September. The bees will spread out nectar to evaporate it. Five supers of nectar might result in one super of honey (once fully evaporated). So, give them plenty of room. If you don’t, they’ll put nectar in the brood chamber. 

• If you don’t have a nearby source of water, make sure you provide one. Bees use water to cool off the hive. Bird baths work well as do chicken watering devices. Whatever you use, the bees should have something to stand on while sipping so they don’t drown (small rocks in a shallow pie plate work well). 

• Many people harvest honey at this time of year. If you do, keep in mind that one colony will need the sufficient honey for your apiary location to make it through winter. 

• First year beekeepers should not harvest honey the first year. That’s because the bees need the honey to make it through the winter. Of course, there are exceptions – but in general it’s solid advice to wait. 

• If you are planning on harvesting honey this is a good time to make sure your extractor is in good working order, you have sufficient jars with lids and your labels comply with state regulations

• For first year beekeepers, ideally, you should have at least 2 deep boxes (or 3 medium boxes) of drawn comb going into winter. This gives the bees enough room for winter stores. You can manipulate frames to encourage the bees to build comb on all the frames. Often the frames on the outside are the last to be drawn. You can place undrawn frames between drawn frames to encourage the bees to draw. But, be careful – you don’t want to split up the brood cluster because that makes it harder for the bees to care for the brood

• If your queen needs to be replaced (many people do this every couple years), this is a good time of year to do so. Check in with local vendors to locate a new queen. Or better yet, once you gain the experience and confidence, raise your own local queens to replace your aging monarch.   

• In hot and humid weather, it’s not unusual for bees to hang out on the front porch, clinging to the hive. This is called “bearding” and it’s normal. They’re simply cooling off.  

• On very hot days, you may want to provide additional ventilation. If you have a notched inner cover, make sure the notch is facing up and not blocked by the outer cover. Placing popsicle sticks under the inner cover in each of the four corners provides a thin gap that should improve air flow in the hive.  

• Often during July and August, we go into a dearth. With little for bees to forage, they may look to other hives for forage and start robbing. Weaker hives are most vulnerable.  Consider closing the upper entrance and installing a robbing screen.   

• Inspect and sample the colony for varroa mites.  I recommend you keep varroa mite levels 2% maximum this month and do your best to be at 1% or less.   Apply treatments if necessary. The Honey Bee Health CoalitionTools for Varroa Management (www.honeybeehealthcoalition.com) has a lot of great info on how to test for varroa as well as treatment options. Read the directions and check the extended weather forecast – some treatments work better in warm temperatures and others in cooler temperatures. After treatment, sample again to make sure your treatment is effective.