July -
Remove and extract the supers containing well ripened honey. Examine each colony every 10 days and treat as in May, (Give supers with foundation, but only to those colonies that are working in the supers. Place directly over the queen excluder, if you are using one.) except towards the end of the month reduce the number of empty combs provided in the supers to about 5. Order queens for July delivery. Requeening is your best management tool and losing a queen now or having a failing queen now will dramatically effect your honey crop. You will need queens to make your June nucs even if you do not plan to expand the number of hives you have, having nucs on hand will allow you to successfully requeen colonies late into the year. Keep in mind that brood laid in late May are not going to be old enough to be field bees during the honey flow. So, have new strong queens on hand to make your nucs. Make queen mating nucs as in May. Give supers with foundation as long as there is nectar coming in, the bees will draw the foundation into comb.
Keep on the lookout for American Foulbrood. You can spot it by piercing sunken capped brood with a tooth pick (or similar tool) and looking for “stringy” filling in place of brood. A second method is to hold the comb by the top bar at a almost flat angle, with the sun to your back, look for dark or black scale on the bottom of cells in the brood area. Treat with terramycin, but do not treat when supers are on that you intend to extract honey from. Check your stored comb for possible wax moth infestation - like rust, wax moths never seem to sleep. Remove and extract the supers containing well ripened honey. Give the single story colonies getting full of bees a second story. Make your plans for your county and state fair entries.
July marks the end of the major honey flow here in the Willamette Valley. You should make your plans to remove your capped frames of honey from your supers and ready them for extraction. Most of the local clubs have extractors to loan and several of the bee supply houses have them for rental. You might want to consider having another beekeeper extract for you and save you the mess. But, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the first of your own honey flowing from the extractor. You should examine the supers frequently but don't leave much empty comb on colonies that are light in stores in the brood nest. Add supers only to the top of the filled ones, not below them. Check colonies for queen and re-queen if queenless. Check colonies for old queens and replace with young ones. Most of the queen breeders (see the ads in this issue) have queens available at VERY attractive prices this time of the year, and there is no excuse for having a poor queen going into fall. You should re-queen any colony with undesirable characteristics such as poor production, mean temper, European foulbrood, excessive propolis, poor brood pattern, unwanted color or markings, etc. Re-queening is one of your most powerful tools in managing your hives.
Now is also the time to start nucs for Fall requeening and increasing the number of hives. You should have one nuc hive for every three hives you have. A nuc hive is the easiest way to introduce a new queen into a hive, especially after the honey flow drops off or in the case of a laying worker. A hive will almost always accept a frame or two of brood with a queen. The bees on the brood frame(s) know the queen and will protect her for the time necessary for her scent to dominate the hive. Keep on the lookout for American foulbrood (AFB). There was a time when state bee inspectors would burn all of your hives in a effort to try to control AFB. Now, with state bee inspection programs for AFB a thing of the past, you can assume that AFB is present in all of your hives. You can keep it under control by treating with Terramycin after you remove your honey supers as part of your fall treatment program. But now, you should look for evidence of AFB and if you find a hive with a heavy case (if you suspect evidence of AFB - almost any of your bee books will give a good description on how to identify AFB in your hives). Check your stored comb for possible wax moth infestation (like rust, wax moths never sleep it seems). Treat for mites with Apistan strips after extracting honey. Don't tempt robber bees with exposed honey. When you remove your honey supers from the hive, keep them covered as you collect them. Not only will it make keeping the yellow jackets at bay a little easier, once bees start robbing, it is very difficulty to stop them from robbing from other hives.
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