Seasonal Apiary Management for Missouri
Updated
At a glance
Filled: at or over its phase's thresholdOutlined: under itGrey: phase not recorded
| March: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “Check for signs of nosema disease, varroa mites, hive beetles or mouse damage. Treat or repair as needed.” |
| April: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “Check for signs of nosema disease, varroa mites, hive beetles or mouse damage. Treat or repair as needed.” |
| May: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. / At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected.” |
| June: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. / At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected.” |
| July: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. / At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected.” |
| August: the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. “At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. / At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected.” |
G7601 is written twice over: once for a first year of establishing hives, once for a second year of managing for honey production. Each track runs in four phases with month ranges attached, and both are reproduced below under their own headings.
- Publisher
- University of Missouri Extension (G7601)
- Date
- Revised March 2016; September 2017
- Organized
- Month ranges, first and second year
- Mite checks
- March, April, May, June, July and August Mite checks section
On this page
University of Missouri Extension's G7601 is not organized around the twelve months at all. It is organized around how long you have been doing this. One track covers a first year, the other a second, and each track is divided into four phases with a range of months beside it. Read down one track and you get a sequence; read across and you can see what changes once the colonies are established.
The guide sets out its purpose and its tolerance in the same breath: "This guide describes a management program for setting up and maintaining beehives to foster healthy bees and produce surplus honey for personal use or to sell. Suggested timelines are subject to changes in weather patterns and can fluctuate as much as 30 days." A month range in this document is therefore a window, not a date.
The two tracks are named in the guide's own words. For the first: "The four phases of apiary management during the first year are planning and construction, apiary setup, colony establishment, and winterizing. Honey production is not expected but is possible during the first year." For the second: "The four phases of apiary management during the second year are education, planning and construction; spring brood build-up; honey production and disease and pest monitoring; and winterizing."
The calendar
First year — Establishing your hives
Planning and construction: November through February
- Take a beginning beekeeping class.
- Join local, state and national beekeeping associations.
- Decide on a location for your apiary.
- Decide on a beginning number of hives. Two to five are recommended for a beginning beekeeper. Each hive would consist of two brood boxes and two supers.
- Decide on the race of bees for the first year. Italian bees are recommended because they are easy to obtain and are the industry standard.
- Before the end of January, order your bees, noting the expected delivery date. Mid- to late April is the earliest recommended date for package bees. Early June is common for nuc and complete hive deliveries.
- Before the end of January, order your woodenware and foundations.
- Before the end of January, order your safety equipment: at a minimum, a smoker, gloves and a veil are recommended.
- Before the end of February, assemble and paint the outsides of the hive boxes with exterior latex paint.
- For emergency feeding, buy 50 pounds of sugar for each hive being established.
Apiary setup: March and April
- Thirty days before bee delivery, set up the bee hives in the apiary.
- Two days before bee delivery, make sugar water. A ratio of 1 unit of sugar to 1 unit of water, by weight, is recommended.
- The best time to install bees is shortly before sunset, so pick up your bee delivery as late in the day as possible.
- Ensure that each hive contains at least 1 quart of sugar water and one pollen patty for food.
- Install the bees into the hives.
- If installing package bees, insert the queen cage and allow at least three days for the workers to release the queen. After three days, check to make sure the queen was released.
- Inspect the sugar water source daily to ensure enough is available, especially if very few plants are blooming (Table 1).
Colony establishment: May through August
- Continue to provide sugar water until nectar flow in your area is strong.
- Watch for signs of swarming, such as large queen cells along the bottoms of the frames in the brood nest. These cells signify overcrowding in the colony. Be prepared to add a second brood box when the first one is 70 percent full.
- Be prepared to add a honey super box when the second brood box is 70 percent full. If you add a honey super, stop feeding sugar water.
- Make sure your bees have enough water available, especially when the weather begins to get hot.
- Make sure your hives are ventilated during the hottest part of the summer.
- Every other week, do a quick hive inspection to check for signs of a laying queen and adequate food.
- Check for hive beetles, and take action to control them if their presence is indicated.
- (mite check) At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. This is an older threshold; current HBHC guidance is lower.
- Once a super is 95 percent capped, it can be safely removed and the honey extracted. The honey must be extracted from the super within 24 hours of removal from the hive, especially if hive beetles are present.
- Watch for wax moths. They are secondary predators and are not a threat to a strong hive, but weak hives may need to be treated.
Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.
Winterizing: September and October
- Decide how to provide emergency food during the winter months.
- Begin feeding sugar water with a ratio of 1 unit of water to 2 units of sugar, by weight.
- Ensure each hive has 40 to 60 pounds of honey or feed for winter consumption.
- Add hardware cloth to the entrance of each hive to prevent mice and skunks from entering during the winter.
- Protect hives from winter winds and snow by creating a windbreak or snow screen, especially on the north side of the hives.
- Do a final hive inspection to make sure the hive is queen-right and strong. Fewer than five frames of bees indicates a weak hive that may not survive the winter.
- Combine a weak hive with a strong hive, but never combine two weak hives as neither will survive.
- Do not go into a hive if the outside air temperature is below 45 degrees F.
- After October, only enter a hive when it is necessary to check on food reserves and only if the outside air temperature is at least 45 degrees F.
Second year — Managing for honey production
Education, planning and construction: November through February
- Take an advanced beekeeping class
- Continue furthering your education by reading books and magazines on bees and beekeeping.
- Keep hive entrances free of snow and ice.
- Bees will consume about 25 pounds of stored honey during January and February. During warmer days, when the temperature is above 45 degrees F, quickly check on food reserves in the hive.
- Never feed liquid food during freezing temperatures because doing so could cause an “icebox” effect on the hive. Loose sugar or fondant is recommended for emergency feeding during this time of year.
- Continue networking with local, state and national beekeeping associations to develop relationships with other beekeepers, and be willing to consider their opinions and suggestions.
- Before the end of January, order additional materials and bees for the coming season.
- Before the end of February, assemble frames.
- Buy or make pollen patties.
Spring brood build-up: March and April
- Make sugar water. A ratio of 1 unit of sugar to 1 unit of water, by weight, is recommended. A 5-gallon bucket will hold about 3 gallons of water and 25 pounds of sugar.
- March is when most hives will starve to death because of the heavy feeding patterns during the previous two months. Make sure food is available for the bees during this time.
- If adding new bees, follow the bee installation instructions in the first year “apiary setup” section.
- In late March or early April, inspect the hives. Check for a laying queen, evidence of drone cells, and food reserves.
- (mite check) Check for signs of nosema disease, varroa mites, hive beetles or mouse damage. Treat or repair as needed.
- In late April, but before a good nectar flow, reverse brood boxes, putting the box with the cluster of bees on the bottom and the empty brood box on top.
Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.
Honey production and disease and pest monitoring: May through August
- Finish sugar water feeding and any necessary disease or parasite treatments before nectar flow in your area is strong.
- Watch for signs of swarming, such as large queen cells along the bottoms of the frames in the brood nest. These cells signify overcrowding in the colony. Be prepared to add a second brood box when the first one is 70 percent full.
- Be prepared to add a honey super box when the second brood box is 70 percent full. If you add a honey super, stop feeding sugar water.
- Maintain the area surrounding your apiary. Use an electric weed trimmer or a nonpowered push mower to keep grass and weeds under control and increase the air circulation around the hive without disturbing the hive.
- If desired, make splits in June to expand your apiary.
- Every other week, do a quick hive inspection to check for signs of a laying queen and adequate food.
- Check for hive beetles, and take action to control them if their presence is indicated.
- (mite check) At the end of July or beginning of August, monitor for varroa mites. During the hotter time of the year, their populations can get out of control. Treatment for mites is indicated when more than 5 percent of the bee population is affected. This is an older threshold; current HBHC guidance is lower.
- At the end of July, if sufficient nectar sources are available and your brood has established quickly, you might start to see honey supers that are completely capped.
- Once a super is 95 percent capped, it can be safely removed and the honey extracted.
Check a mite count with the varroa calculator.
Winterizing: September and October
- Decide how to provide emergency food during the winter months.
- Begin feeding sugar water with a ratio of 1 unit of water to 2 units of sugar, by weight.
- Ensure each hive has 40 to 60 pounds of honey or feed for winter consumption.
- Add hardware cloth to the entrance of each hive to prevent mice and skunks from entering during the winter.
- Protect hives from winter winds and snow by creating a windbreak or snow screen, especially on the north side of the hives.
- Do final hive inspection to make sure the hive is queen-right and strong. Fewer than five frames of bees indicates a weak hive that may not survive the winter.
- Combine a weak hive with a strong hive, but never combine two weak hives as neither will survive.
- After October, only enter a hive when it is necessary to check on food reserves and only if the outside air temperature is over 45 degrees F.
- Never feed liquid food during freezing temperatures because doing so could cause an “icebox” effect on the hive.
The first year is mostly buying and building
Winter in the first track is a shopping and carpentry list, with deadlines. Bees are to be ordered before the end of January, with the expected delivery date noted; woodenware, foundation and safety equipment are ordered in the same window; boxes are assembled and painted before the end of February. The guide even suggests the scale to start at: "Two to five are recommended for a beginning beekeeper."
Setup runs to the hour. Hives go up thirty days before the bees arrive, syrup is mixed two days before, and the guide says that "The best time to install bees is shortly before sunset, so pick up your bee delivery as late in the day as possible." The sugar syrup calculator mixes the 1:1 the guide asks for there, and the 2:1 the winterizing phase asks for later.
What changes in the second year
The second track opens with education rather than equipment, and it assumes stored honey to watch over the winter. One line in the spring phase is a warning about the months just past rather than about the month at hand: "March is when most hives will starve to death because of the heavy feeding patterns during the previous two months." The rest of that phase is inspection — a laying queen, drone cells, food reserves — and reversing the brood boxes in late April, "but before a good nectar flow".
The guide also points outside itself for anything diagnostic. Missouri's apiculture law, it notes, "provides for inspection of honey bees upon request", and it gives the number for the state's plant pest control program. If you are unsure what you are looking at in a frame, that is the route it wants you to take, and the inspection checklist here is built the same way: it records what you saw and leaves the diagnosis to an inspector.
Mite checks
Both tracks put monitoring at the same point in the summer — the end of July or the beginning of August — and both give the same reason: mite populations can get out of hand in the hottest part of the year.
Both also print a treatment threshold, and that threshold is older guidance. The figure G7601 gives is higher than what the Honey Bee Health Coalition publishes today, which is why the line appears above with a flag attached rather than being quietly dropped or quietly corrected. The figure appears only inside that flagged line, and nowhere else on the page. The varroa calculator carries the current levels, works a sample out against them, and lists the older published figures separately so the difference is visible rather than assumed.
Mite-check reminders for the Missouri calendar
One short email in each month the Missouri calendar asks for a mite check. Nothing else.