Jobs for July

Jobs to carry out this month:

• Carry out detailed inspections on colonies that have not been split and take action if you find queen cells. See this month’s manipulating frames tip to help. 

• Continue to monitor varroa drop and take appropriate action.

• Leave bait hives out – there may still be swarms about.

• Did you experience a June gap in the bees’ forage? If so, check food levels and feed if necessary.

• Reduce entrances to avoid the risk of robbing by bees and wasps.

• Make wasp traps – see guidance online from BBKA, NBU, Dave Cushman, etc.

• Continue to add supers ahead of the bees’ requirements when the lower box is full of bees not honey.

• Make sure you have equipment, jars and labels organised for your honey harvest.

• Towards end of month, if ready, remove and extract sealed frames of honey. See August’s extracting honey tip to help.

• Put the empty frames/supers back in the evening for the bees to clean out. Always return them to the hives they came from and try not to leave bits of sticky comb lying about in the apiary.

• Look out for Asian hornet workers hawking outside your hives - use protein or sweet liquid bait stations away from your hives. Check trees for large secondary Asian hornet nests.

• Keep watching, learning, and asking questions.

 

Frequency of apiary visits – weekly