Backyard Beekeeping Timeline for California

This calendar is a single sheet from the E.L. Niño Bee Lab at UC Davis, produced with the California Master Beekeeper Program. It is a chart rather than an article. Two columns run down the page, each a stack of boxes, and each box is a month or a range of months with a short list of jobs in it. There is no explanatory prose at all, and no year is printed on the sheet.

The left column is headed "First Year Beekeeper" and has seven boxes: a January-to-March planning block, then April, May, June, July and August on their own, then a September-to-December block that closes the year. The right column is headed "Beekeeper w/Previous Hives" and has six: January, February, March and April singly, then May and June together, then July. The right column stops there — it has no boxes for August through December — so a beekeeper with established hives gets a detailed spring and an empty late year on this sheet.

Both columns are below, under those two headings, with each box under its own month label.

The calendar

First Year BeekeeperBeekeeper w/Previous Hives

First Year Beekeeper

January–March

• Read and Take Classes
• Talk to other Beekeepers
• Order Packages or Nucs
• Order and Prepare hive equipment
• (mite check) Determine Feeding and Mite management protocols

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

April

• Pick-up/Install Packages and/or Nucs
• Ensure queen is present and egg-laying
• Ensure bees are drawing the comb properly
• Feed syrup to all packages
• Add Drone comb if desired

May

• Feed syrup to hives with undrawn frames
• Inspect colonies regularly
• Become more comfortable in the hives
• Ensure all stages of brood are present

June

• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat
• Unlikely to extract honey from a package
• Likely add second super to hives

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

July

• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat
• Unlikely to extract honey from a package
• Likely add second super to hives
• Remove Drone comb

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

August

• Nectar flow is generally over or very minimal
• (mite check) Test mite population and treat as needed
• Reduce and equalize/combine colonies as needed
• Check queen has space to lay
• Ensure colonies are still rearing brood
• Extract and bottle honey
• Add Entrance reducers and prevent robbing

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

September–December

• Equalize/Combine hives, clear dead-out equipment, define hive losses
• Continue to prevent robbing, reduce colonies if needed
• Ensure an egg-laying queen is present
• (mite check) Test and treat for mites if needed, feed syrup, feed pollen patties

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

Beekeeper w/Previous Hives

January

• Check hives for survival and strength
• Order replacement/expansion Packages or Nucs
• Clean dead hive equipment
• (mite check) Determine Feeding and Mite management protocols

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

February

• Continue to check hives for survival and strength
• Feed Colonies Syrup and Pollen
• (mite check) Test For mite levels in larger colonies
• Potentially treat colonies

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

March

• Provide Space/Supers for expanding colonies
• Evaluate Queen laying pattern
• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat
• Add Drone comb if desired

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

April

• Provide Space/Supers for expanding colonies
• Evaluate Queen laying pattern
• Split strong colonies
• Queen Rearing
• Replace poor/failing queens
• Monitor for Supercedure
• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

May–June

• Provide Space/Supers for expanding colonies
• Avoid hives from being “honey-bound”
• Add honey supers to production colonies
• Watch for swarming/ Capture Swarms
• Split strong colonies (by early June)
• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

July

• Provide Space/Supers for expanding colonies
• Avoid hives from being “honey-bound”
• Add honey supers to production colonies
• (mite check) Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat
• Remove Drone comb
• Extract and bottle honey

Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.

Two very different years

The first-year column starts before there are any bees. Its opening block is reading, classes, talking to other beekeepers, ordering packages or nucs, ordering and preparing equipment, and deciding on feeding and mite management before any of it arrives. April is delivery and installation, with three checks attached: that the queen is there and laying, that the comb is being drawn properly, and that the packages are fed. May is more of the same, plus a line that is really about the beekeeper rather than the bees — "Become more comfortable in the hives".

Summer is where the chart manages expectations. Both June and July tell a first-year beekeeper the same thing: "Unlikely to extract honey from a package". The instruction to extract and bottle honey reaches that column only in August, after a line saying the nectar flow is generally over or very minimal. The established column, by contrast, is making splits and rearing queens in April, watching for swarms in May and June, and adding honey supers to production colonies through to July, when it extracts and bottles.

What each column keeps asking for

The two columns also differ on what a hive is short of, and both say so by repetition rather than by explanation. Four of the six boxes in the established column open with the same instruction — "Provide Space/Supers for expanding colonies" — and the two that cover May through July add a warning against letting hives become honey-bound. Space is the recurring problem on that side of the sheet.

The first-year column comes back instead to comb and syrup. April asks you to make sure the bees "are drawing the comb properly" and to "Feed syrup to all packages"; May narrows the same job to the hives that still need it, "Feed syrup to hives with undrawn frames". The queen is the other standing check: April wants the "queen is present and egg-laying", and the closing block asks again for "an egg-laying queen is present".

One job is scheduled twice in both columns, once to put something in and once to take it out again. "Add Drone comb if desired" is an April line for a first-year beekeeper and a March line for an established one; "Remove Drone comb" falls in July on both sides.

Mite checks

Mites are the one thread running the whole way down both columns. Every box in the established column mentions them. So do five of the seven first-year boxes — the exceptions are April and May, which are taken up with installing packages and getting comb drawn.

The wording is consistent and deliberately conditional: "Test mite levels in colonies Potentially treat" is the standard line, and the first-year column's opening block asks you to have decided on a mite management protocol before the bees arrive. August's line is "Test mite population and treat as needed", and the closing September-to-December block pairs testing with feeding syrup and pollen patties.

The chart gives no threshold, so there is nothing here to repeat or to bring up to date. Use the varroa calculator to turn a wash or roll into a percentage and read it against the Honey Bee Health Coalition's current levels.