Calendar: August

  • Check brood nest for diseases.
  • Check for swarm cells in mountain areas.
  • Remove surplus honey leaving some space in supers for late summer and fall flow.
  • Colonies will need 40-60 pounds of honey for overwintering.
  • Extract supers of honey removed from colonies.
  • Return extracted supers to colony for cleaning just before dark to prevent robbing by colonies.
  • Remove cleaned supers from colony and store under paradichlorobenzene fumigation to prevent wax moth damage.
  • Requeen all colonies every year that you double crop. All colonies that you do not move with honey flows should be requeened every two years.
  • Before placing new caged queen in the colony, remove the old queen and all queen cells. Check the brood chamber and make sure you have two or more frames of sealed brood in the colony. Place the caged queen over the frames of brood.
  • Recheck the requeened colonies in 10 days for a laying queen. If eggs are present, do not disturb the colony.
  • Order your queens marked for easy location and identification.