Some Reflections on
Seasonal Management
 
  • Successful beekeeping can be an elusive goal. It requires knowledge, experience, effort and planning. The Beekeeper’s Calendar presented here is intended to assist those seeking to improve their success with beekeeping. The calendar presents a management system organized into a series of inspections, each with an outline of the actions you should be taking at different times of the year. While the actions are universal to beekeeping, you will need to integrate them into your operation in a way that works for you. Remember! Beekeeping cannot be reduced to a simple list of actions that can be implemented according to a fixed calendar schedule. Not only must you tailor this schedule to your operation and location, you must develop the ability to determine if a colony is doing what a healthy colony should be doing, or if there is some problem that requires a remedy. Only experience can develop that ability.

  • The inspection schedule works best for those with 150 - 200 colonies or less. That’s about how many colonies you can manage within the two-week time frame for each inspection. Remember! There will be many days when inclement weather will prevent you from working your bees, especially in the spring. If you have more colonies, the basic management system embodied in these inspections still applies, but you will need to re-think the way in which you implement the various actions. In other words, you will need to switch from colony-level management to apiary-level management.

  • The schedule summarizes the key elements of the management program we use at Dyce Laboratory in Ithaca, NY. The schedule is based on apple blossom starting around May 10th and goldenrod blooming from September 1 through September 24th. You will need to make adjustments for your specific location. In addition, because every year is different, the timing of specific events varies somewhat from year to year; and occasionally, it varies dramatically. Also, there can be large differences among apiaries during the same year. Consequently, some instructions are repeated on consecutive dates because the window for implementing a particular technique often extends over a considerable period of time, depending on the specific conditions encountered. For example, ‘reversing’ is mentioned on inspections 2, 3, 4 and 5. In practice, you will reverse once or twice.
  • Each inspection contains two major divisions: General Management and IPM (Integrated Pest Management). In practice, many of the actions you take for one will assist in the other. For example, under General Management, you may be instructed to inspect for queen quality, while under IPM, you may be instructed to inspect for disease. Clearly, you will not be inspecting the colony twice. These actions will be carried out simultaneously as you inspect the colony.
  • One of the biggest problems you will have is completing spring treatments for control of Varroa destructor and prevention of American foulbrood (AFB) before you add supers for the spring nectar flows. There are two specific issues you must address:
    • Pesticides may not be present in a colony during a marketable honey flow. Treatment with Apistan requires a minimum of 42 days; therefore, you must install strips at least 42 days before adding supers for honey production. Treatment with CheckMite+ also requires a minimum of 42 days, but you must begin treatment at least 56 days before adding supers for honey production. The additional 14 days required for CheckMite+ is due to a mandatory 14-day withholding period. Mite-Away II has a three week treatment period and no withholding period, making it ideal for spring as well as fall treatment.

    • Before you treat a colony with oxytetracylcine-HCl (Terramycin® or TM) as part of your American foulbrood (AFB) prevention program, you must be sure that it is not already infected with AFB. This means that you need to conduct a thorough inspection of the brood nest in the spring prior to initiating prophylactic antibiotic treatments. You should wait as long as possible before conducting this inspection because you want there to be as much brood present as possible for inspection. However, you also need to initiate your first application of antibiotics at least 54 days before adding supers for honey production because you need to make three applications of TM at 4-5 day intervals, and TM has a 42-day withholding period. These requirements conflict with one another and necessitate careful planning on your part.

  • Never apply TM to colonies with active AFB or AFB scales. AFB infected colonies must be abated according to local regulations. Usually, this requires that the colony be killed and the associated equipment be burned or buried.

  • In addition to the 10 inspections outlined here, you should check your apiaries once or twice during the winter in case colonies have been damaged by weather, animals or vandals. You may also need to make an extra visit or two to pull honey and return combs to your colonies.