Summer Time Bee Hive Maintenance | Experienced Beekeeper

A reward for beekeepers...

After busy months of hive checks and watching your bees increase in numbers to forage and store nectar, now comes the exciting part of the season – harvesting time.

There’s nothing quite like tasting the different flavours collected over the season.

But how much can you harvest, how often, and when do you need to consider leaving stores for overwintering?
Your checklist for summer beekeeping:

Harvesting tips and tricks

How much honey to harvest

Create a water station

Bearding vs swarming

Plan for expansion

Pest management

Harvesting tips for summer

Are your frames ready for harvest? It’s important to ensure your Flow Frames are full and capped before harvesting, otherwise your honey may ferment if the moisture content is too high.

Make sure you’re set up for success: When it’s harvest time in your apiary, read through our harvesting checklist to ensure you’ve got the optimal set-up for easy honey harvesting.

Top Tip: Each Flow Frame holds approximately 6.5 lb (3 kg) of unprocessed honey, this can increase if the bees really build-out each frame. Bee prepared with extra jars in case your first one overflows!

How much can I harvest?

The amount of honey available for harvest will be dependent on many factors, such as hive strength and available forage. Some beekeepers will harvest several times in one season, whilst other colonies will only produce enough to get them through the winter.

Depending on your region and climate, there can be periods of sparse nectar availability during the summer. It depends on what plants are flowering in your area at particular times. Keeping aware of how much food your bees are bringing home will allow you to judge when it’s appropriate to harvest.

Top Tip: Local knowledge is really important here, so get advice from other beekeepers in your area.

Offer some heat relief for your colony

If temperatures are typically over 85ºF/30ºC or if humidity is high in your area, you may need to offer your bees a little support so they can retain their optimal hive temperature. The ventilation controls on our Flow Hive 2 are really handy for this! If you have a Classic model, make sure the corflute slider is in the lower position or removed completely.

Ensure your bees have a nearby water source – here are some tips on how to create a water station for your bees. Try to ensure your hive has shade during the hottest part of the day.

Top Tip: Don’t make the water source too deep, bees aren’t good swimmers!

Bearding or Swarming?

At this time of year you might see your bees gathered in large numbers on the front of the hive. If the temperature is hot, they are probably bearding, however, it is still possible to get some late season swarms.

Bearding is yet another fascinating behaviour, where bees fan their wings to maintain the perfect temperature inside the hive.

If your hive is bearding, you may like to ask yourself two questions; 1. Is there enough room in the hive for the expanding colony? And, 2. Could they be preparing to swarm?

Top Tip: Do a hive inspection and look out for peanut-shaped queen cells that indicate a late season swarm.

Add a second brood box

If your hive is too full, or you want to ensure your bees will have enough stores to get through the leaner months ahead, this could be the right time to give them more space by adding a second brood box.

Top Tip: Many experienced beekeepers keep a swarm capture kit on hand (sometimes even in their car!) throughout beekeeping season, consisting of a brood box, brood frames, base, roof and a suit.

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Two hives are better than one

If the signs indicate that your bees are ready to swarm, you can get out in front and split the hive before they do.

Furthermore, owning two hives ramps up your learning and understanding of the fascinating nature of bees. Each colony is its own unique microcosm and community, with two you can compare colony strength, productivity, health and support ailing hives with queen-cell transfers or brood if needed.

Bonus: Why two hives are better than one.

Will you split your hive?

If you have a large, healthy hive it is possible to create a new colony from it by making a split.

The concept is that you take a portion of an established colony and transfer it to a separate hive thereby creating two colonies.

They'll each have sufficient worker bee populations, stores and either their own queen or possibility of creating one from existing fertilised eggs.

Splitting your hive is the most successful way to mitigate swarms and is considered a responsible beekeeping practice.

Bonus: Learn about vertical splits.

Summer hive inspections

When inspecting, be on the lookout for good population numbers, your queen, healthy brood patterns and honey stores, and most importantly, look closely for pests and diseases and treat accordingly.

Many beekeepers choose to start applying their mite treatments after harvesting so check with local experts for recommendations on this important process.

Bonus: Varroa mites - what do I need to do?

Thrill of the swarm catch

When a colony has made the decision to swarm, sometimes it’s unavoidable.

Luckily, catching a swarm of bees is one of the most joyous parts of beekeeping and it is an easy and free way to bolster your apiary!

At this stage, they seldom have comb and are just a cluster of bees. Without the complication of comb, a beekeeper can easily scoop, shake or lower the swarm into their equipment and bring them back to their apiary.

Bonus: Watch Cedar catch a swarm at Flow HQ live on camera!

Need extra help?

There’s always more to learn to grow and deepen your knowledge in beekeeping.

So in conjunction with the world's experts we've created TheBeekeeper.org. It lets you fast-track your learning easily and enjoyably. Learn in your own time with high-quality videos explaining what you need to know in order to feel confident looking after your bees.

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