- Have your bees on their new location by the first week of July.
- Extract the honey you removed in June to have the supers available for the fall honey flow.
- Return extracted supers to the colonies just before dark to prevent robbing.
- Pack honey in a quality attractive package – all new glassware and lids with a label.
- Continue to check for swarms in mountain areas; combine swarms issuing after July 15 with weak colonies.
Queens do dramatically slow down on the egg lniayg before swarming. They need to be slim enough to fly, so the workers chase her majesty round the hive and feed her less food. The chasing and lack of food puts her off lniayg and gets her into flying condition. I find it very difficult to tell whether a colony is superseding their queen or thinking of swarming. If they’re going to swarm they usually do it once the queen cells are capped. If you have a lot of bees in there you could do an artificial swarm to be on the safe side. Those are some stunning hives you have there!