Main Beekeeping Activities in August — Queen Audit, Feeding, Varroa, Winter Stores 2026

August is not just the end of summer — for the experienced beekeeper it marks the beginning of the new beekeeping year. Every hour you spend in the apiary this month is an hour invested in the colonies that will populate your hives in March and produce the next season's honey crop. The bees that winter in your hives are the bees that are being laid, fed, and protected from parasites right now. The work you do between the first and the last day of August is what separates the apiaries that come out of winter with ten strong colonies from the ones that come out with three.

This guide walks through the five essential August activities in the order they should happen, plus the practical details that turn an inspection into a plan: how to score the queen, how much syrup to feed, when to treat for varroa, how much honey to leave on the hive, and how to keep robber bees out of weak colonies. None of it is exotic. All of it is the predictable, boring, easily-skipped work that decides whether you open strong hives in spring or empty ones.

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1. The Main Autumn Inspection — Score Every Hive Before Anything Else

The first action of August is a structured, hive-by-hive inspection. This is not the spring inspection (where everything is full of hope and nectar) or the mid-summer inspection (where everything is full of bees). It is the audit. You are scoring each colony on three dimensions: queen quality, population strength, and food reserves. The numbers you write on the clipboard decide which colonies get merged, which get a new queen, and which get fed aggressively versus which can wait.

Walk the apiary in the same order every year. Start early in the morning, before the bees are hot and defensive, and before the foragers have left the hive to dilute your frame counts. Bring a smoker, a hive tool, a notebook or a phone with an apiary app, and a queen-marking pen if you intend to find and mark the queens you keep.

Step 1: Queen quality

Pull a brood frame and look at the pattern. You want a soldier-stance pattern: cell after cell of capped worker brood, no gaps, no drone cells in the middle, no shotgun holes. A good queen in August produces a tight, oval disc of brood that fills the centre of the frame.

What you do not want:

• Spotty ("shotgun") pattern — capped cells mixed with empty cells, indicating an old queen or a queen running out of stored sperm. The colony will not build up well in spring.
• Excessive drone brood in worker cells — a failing queen or laying workers. Drone cells in the bottom third of a frame are normal; drone cells in the middle are not.
• No eggs or young larvae at all — either the queen is gone, or the colony has gone queenless and is past the point of recovery. Combine this hive with a stronger one.
• Multiple eggs per cell, scattered across the frame — laying workers. The colony cannot raise a queen from a worker egg. Combine or shake out.

If the queen is past two seasons of service, replace her. August is the ideal window: the weather is warm enough for mating flights, drones are still abundant, and the bees are more receptive to a new queen than they are in spring when the colony is in full expansion mode. You can introduce a mated queen, a queen cell, or even a ripe queen cell three days before emergence, depending on your experience and queen supplier.

Step 2: Population strength

Count frames of bees. This is the single most underrated skill in beekeeping — beekeepers who cannot gauge colony strength end up overwintering colonies that are too small to keep themselves warm. A standard deep frame covered on both sides with adult bees counts as one frame of bees. A frame covered on only one side counts as half. Do not count bees clinging to the walls of the hive.

Use this quick scale:

• 1 to 3 frames of bees — too weak to overwinter alone. Combine with a stronger colony immediately, or unite over a sheet of newspaper.
• 4 to 5 frames of bees — borderline. Can overwinter in a mild region with good feeding, but is at risk of spring dwindles. Push to combine unless you have a specific reason to keep it.
• 6 to 8 frames of bees — the minimum healthy wintering cluster in most of continental Europe. Should make it through with adequate stores and a young queen.
• 9 to 12 frames of bees — a strong colony that will likely explode in spring and could be split or used to draw foundation in May.
• 13+ frames of bees — exceptional. Either a very late swarm you kept or a colony on a strong late flow. Monitor for swarming in spring.

Write the number on the hive lid, in a notebook, or in your apiary app. You will refer to this figure in November, in February, and in May of next year.

Step 3: Food reserves at the time of the inspection

Lift the hive from the back. A heavy hive is a hive with honey. A light hive is a hive that needs feeding. This is rough but effective. For a precise figure, you can weigh hives with a luggage scale hooked under the back, or estimate by counting capped frames:

• 1 full deep frame of capped honey ≈ 3.5 to 4 kg of stores.
• 1 full shallow (medium) frame of capped honey ≈ 2.0 to 2.5 kg of stores.
• 1 full Dadant frame of capped honey ≈ 4.5 kg of stores.

A colony needs to enter September with about 15 kg of stores as a starting budget. If the August inspection shows less than 8 to 10 kg, the colony needs aggressive feeding. If it shows 12 to 15 kg, normal top-up feeding is enough. If it shows more than 18 kg, you have a strong colony and a surplus — you can pull a frame or two for harvest if the nectar is genuinely capped honey, not sugar syrup that is being stored.

Step 4: Decide the action

After the inspection, every colony falls into one of four buckets:

1. Strong + good queen + adequate stores — stimulating feed, varroa treatment, light top-up. The standard plan.
2. Strong + poor queen — requeen immediately, then continue with the standard plan.
3. Weak + good queen — combine with a strong colony, or boost by giving brood frames from a strong colony. Stimulating feed aggressively.
4. Weak + poor queen + no hope — combine with no hesitation. Better to have one strong colony in May than two weak ones.

Combine over newspaper. Place a sheet of newspaper on top of the stronger hive's brood box, cut three slits in it with the hive tool, and set the weaker hive (with its queen removed) on top. The bees chew through the paper over 24 to 48 hours, gradually merging their pheromones. By the time they meet, they share the same smell and fighting is rare.

2. Stimulating the Queen — Imitate a Nectar Flow with 1:1 Syrup

In most parts of Europe the natural nectar flow has ended by the second week of August. The bees are no longer bringing in fresh nectar. The queen, sensing the dry period, slows down and may stop laying entirely. This is the worst possible outcome for the colony, because the winter bees — the long-lived bees that survive from October to March — are produced from eggs laid in August and September. No eggs in August means no winter bees means no spring colony.

Stimulating feeding imitates a flow. By giving the colony small amounts of thin syrup every day or two, you trick the queen into believing nectar is still coming in. She keeps laying. The bees keep rearing brood. By the end of September, the colony has a thick cohort of young winter bees ready to cluster in November.

Syrup recipe and dosage

The standard stimulating syrup is a 1:1 ratio by weight (or 1:1 by volume if you measure by jug). One kilogram of white granulated sugar dissolved in one litre of hot water, then cooled to room temperature. Stir until fully dissolved. The mix should be clear, not cloudy. Use white granulated sugar, not brown, not Demerara, not honey. Brown sugars contain impurities that crystallise in the bees' guts and cause dysentery.

Dosage per feeding:

• Frame feeder — 1.5 to 2 litres per colony, every other day.
• Top feeder / Miller feeder — 1.5 to 2 litres per colony, every other day.
• Boardman entrance feeder — 0.5 to 1 litre per colony, twice a day. (Higher risk of robbing — only use with strong colonies.)
• Baggie feeder on top of the frames — 2 to 3 litres per colony, replaced every 3 to 5 days.

Continue stimulating feeding until mid-September in warm years, or until the end of the first week of September in cold years. The moment the natural pollen flow from late asters, goldenrod, or ivy kicks in, you can stop — the bees will continue rearing on real nectar.

Alternative: open stored honey

If you have hives with surplus honey from the spring flow still on the brood box — light spring honey, acacia, or early wildflower — you can break the cappings on two or three outer frames with a fork and let the bees uncap and redistribute the honey. This is the most natural form of stimulating feed. It skips the syrup work entirely and gives the colony real honey with the floral signature intact.

It only works if:

• You have surplus honey you are willing to leave on the hive.
• The honey has not crystallised hard in the comb (crystallised comb can be opened but the bees sometimes leave it untouched).
• The colony is strong enough to uncap and move the honey within a few days.

What not to do

Do not feed thick (2:1 or 3:2) syrup during the stimulating phase. Thick syrup is for winter store top-up, not for stimulating. The bees treat thick syrup as a "store this for later" action and pack it into the brood box, which can crowd the queen and reduce the area she has for laying. Reserve 2:1 syrup for late September, after the last stimulating feed, when the goal is to top up the winter reserves.

Do not feed more than 2 litres per colony at a time. A heavy dose of syrup triggers alarm pheromone, attracts robber bees, and overwhelms the colony's ability to process it. Small frequent doses are the rule.

3. Varroa Treatment — The Highest-Stakes Job of the Month

The varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is the single biggest biological threat to overwintering colonies. By August the mite population has been climbing all summer in the sealed brood cells of the colony. As the colony's brood production tapers in late summer, the ratio of mites to bees climbs steeply. The mites that would normally spread across hundreds of brood cells now concentrate on the few brood cells that remain. Each emerging winter bee carries a higher parasite load, with a damaged fat body and a reduced lifespan. These are the bees that are supposed to live from October to March. Instead they die in November or January, and the colony dwindles.

August treatment is the single highest-leverage pest control action of the year. There is no other month where mite control has such a direct impact on overwintering success.

Treatment timing

The first rule of August varroa treatment: treat immediately after the last honey extraction. Most varroa treatments leave residues in wax and some leave traces in honey. You never want treatment residues in the honey you sell or eat. Strip the supers, extract, return the empty supers to the hives if the bees still need them for clustering — and only then insert the treatment.

If you have already pulled honey in late July, treat in the first week of August. If you are pulling late honey in early August, treat the same week. The window is short: treatment takes 4 to 8 weeks for the soft options, and needs to be finished before the bees cluster for winter.

Choosing the right treatment

Treatment choice is a function of three variables: outside temperature, mite resistance in your area, and your tolerance for synthetic residues in the wax.

Synthetic acaricides (amitraz, fluvalinate, flumethrin): sold as veterinary strips that you hang between brood frames. Amitraz is the most widely used in Europe and is highly effective. Resistance is a real risk if strips have been used continuously in the same apiary for years — rotate active ingredients if you have been using the same brand for more than three seasons. Strips stay in the hive for 4 to 6 weeks. Outside temperature should be below 30 °C for amitraz and below 28 °C for fluvalinate, otherwise the active ingredient volatilises too fast and the bees can be affected.

Organic acids:

• Formic acid (MAQS, Formic Pro, Apiguard's companion product) — penetrates the wax cappings and kills mites inside sealed brood cells, which other treatments cannot do. The downside: formic acid is corrosive and depends on outside temperature. Most labelled products work between 10 and 29 °C. Above 30 °C the fumes can damage brood; below 10 °C the efficacy drops. Always read the product label.
• Oxalic acid (dribble, sublimation, or strips) — the cleanest option for a broodless colony, but in August the colony is still rearing brood, so a single oxalic treatment has limited efficacy. Best as a follow-up in November or December when the colony is broodless. Some beekeepers do a triple oxalic treatment in August at five-day intervals to compensate for the brood-protected mites.

Essential oils and thymol-based products: (Apiguard, Apilife VAR, Thymovar) — moderate efficacy, useful as a rotation to break resistance to synthetic strips. Thymol works best between 15 and 30 °C. Strong smell, can taint honey and wax, slower than synthetics.

Mite count before treatment

Always do a mite count before and after treatment. It is the only way to know if the treatment actually worked and to decide whether you need a second pass.

Two reliable techniques:

• Sugar roll (powdered sugar shake) — collect 300 bees from a brood frame into a jar with a screen lid, add a tablespoon of powdered sugar, shake for 60 seconds, then tip the jar over a white surface. The mites fall through the screen with the sugar. Count the mites. Divide by 3 to get the mites per 100 bees.
• Alcohol wash — same idea but with 70% isopropyl alcohol. Kills the bees (so use a frame of bees you can sacrifice, not the queen). Higher accuracy because the mites are immobilised and easy to count.

Action thresholds in August:

• 0 to 2 mites per 100 bees — healthy. Treat as normal; the colony is on track.
• 3 to 5 mites per 100 bees — moderate. Treat immediately and consider a follow-up treatment in October or November.
• 6+ mites per 100 bees — emergency. The colony is in serious trouble. Use the strongest available treatment, consider a synthetic strip rotation, and plan for a follow-up oxalic dribble in November once the brood is gone.

After treatment, wait 7 to 14 days for the product to take effect, then do a second count. Effective treatments should drop the count to under 1 mite per 100 bees. If the count is still above 3, the treatment failed — wrong product, wrong timing, or resistance. Change strategy.

🛒 Equipment picks for August work: A varroa sugar-roll test kit on Amazon, a standard beehive entrance reducer, and a pollen substitute patty cover the three pieces of equipment that show up on every August apiary list.

Treatment mistakes to avoid

• Treating with supers still on the hive — strips contact honey that is later extracted. Always remove supers first.
• Splitting a strip between two hives — underdosing guarantees resistance. Use the full strip per hive as labelled.
• Stopping treatment early — most strips need 4 to 6 weeks of contact. Pulling them at two weeks wastes the active ingredient and leaves the strongest mites alive.
• Using the same chemical for years — mite resistance builds. Rotate active ingredients every 2 to 3 seasons.
• Forgetting the follow-up — one treatment is rarely enough. Plan the November follow-up (oxalic dribble or sublimation) at the same time you plan the August treatment.

4. Winter Food Reserves — 15 to 20 kg, Properly Arranged

Winter reserves are the difference between a colony that opens the spring strong and one that starves in February. The target number is 15 to 20 kg of capped honey per colony, arranged so the cluster can reach it without breaking the cluster in sub-zero temperatures.

The arrangement matters as much as the amount. Stores should be on the sides of the brood box and above the brood nest, with the brood frames in the centre. The bees form their winter cluster on the empty cells below the honey arch, and they move upward into the honey as the cluster consumes it. If the honey is too far away — in a super that the bees cannot reach because of cold — they starve with full frames above their heads.

Step 1: Remove the old, dark, and empty frames

Open the brood box and pull out:

• Frames that are completely empty of brood and honey.
• Frames with mostly drone cells or drone brood.
• Frames that are visibly dark — the wax is black from years of cocoon layers. Dark comb harbours pathogens, absorbs treatment residues, and reduces cell size for new bees. Beekeepers aim to retire two to three frames per hive per year, replacing with fresh foundation.
• Frames with old pollen that has hardened ("pollen plug") — the bees will not use it in winter.

Mark the replaced frames. Render the old wax for candles or soap. Fresh comb is one of the cheapest disease-control investments in your apiary.

Step 2: Rearrange the brood nest

The standard winter brood box layout:

1. Position 1 (wall): capped honey frame
2. Position 2: capped honey frame
3. Position 3: brood frame (eggs and young larvae)
4. Position 4: brood frame (capped brood)
5. Position 5: brood frame (capped brood)
6. Positions 6 to 8: brood frame, brood frame, then a follower board or the next wall — depends on the box size.
7. Continue with capped honey on the other side if you have a 10-frame box.

The goal is: brood in the centre, honey on the sides and above. The cluster forms below the central brood, eats upward, and gradually shifts to one side or the other as the honey runs out. If you can only do one thing in your August inspection, this is the rearrangement that pays off the most.

Step 3: Top up with thick syrup

For colonies that need more than 15 kg, finish the feeding after the stimulating feed is done. Switch to a thick 2:1 syrup (two parts sugar to one part water by volume) and feed larger doses — 3 to 5 litres per colony per session, every 3 to 5 days, until the desired weight is reached.

Two-liter baggie feeders on top of the inner cover are the most efficient way to deliver large volumes fast. The bees take the syrup down within 24 to 48 hours and store it in the brood box. Continue feeding until the colony has reached its target weight, or until mid-September — whichever comes first.

Late feeding (after mid-September) risks the bees not having enough time to evaporate the water from the syrup and cap the cells. Uncapped sugar syrup can ferment in the comb and cause dysentery in the winter cluster. Be conservative on the timing.

How to estimate the final weight

Lift the hive from the back with one hand. The standard test: a properly fed wintering colony should feel like lifting a heavy bag of dog food (about 25 to 35 kg for a 10-frame Langstroth deep). A colony that is too light to register weight is a colony that needs more feed.

For a more precise number, weigh the hive with a luggage scale under the back of the bottom board. Subtract the empty hive weight (the boxes, frames, lid, base — you will know this from your own equipment). The remainder is the colony weight, which is roughly two-thirds bees and one-third stores.

Local variation

The 15 to 20 kg target is for most of continental Europe. Adjust:

• Mild winters (Mediterranean, Atlantic coast): 10 to 12 kg is often enough. The bees are flying most of the winter and using stores steadily.
• Cold winters (continental, mountainous): 20 to 25 kg is safer. The cluster cannot break to forage on warm winter days, and a long cold stretch can burn through reserves.
• Long winters with early spring (Bulgarian mountains, Carpathians): 18 to 22 kg to last from October to early April.

What about feeding pollen substitutes?

If the colony is rearing winter bees in August and there is no natural pollen flow, you can supplement with a pollen patty or a dry pollen substitute. Pollen is the protein source for rearing brood. Without adequate pollen, the bees cannot produce the fat bodies they need to survive the winter.

Common options: commercially available pollen patties (made from soy flour, brewer's yeast, and sugar), homemade patties (one part pollen, three parts sugar, mixed into a dough), or dry substitutes in open feeders near the apiary. Use them sparingly — overfeeding pollen in late summer can encourage unnecessary brood rearing that consumes stores.

For commercial patties, look for a soy-based patty with at least 15% crude protein. A pollen substitute patty for bees on Amazon is a quick source if you have not pre-ordered from your local beekeeping supplier. Avoid any patty with added honey from unknown sources — it can spread American or European foulbrood spores.

5. Preventing Robbing — Make the Hives Defensible

Robbing is the late-summer hazard that turns a routine feeding into a colony-loss event. The setup is simple: a dearth of natural nectar, the smell of syrup or honey in the air, and a weak colony that cannot defend its entrance. Strong colonies send scouts, the scouts recruit more bees, and within hours a weak colony can be overwhelmed. The defending bees are killed, the honey is stolen, the brood is left exposed, and the colony collapses.

Robbing is not just inconvenient. It kills colonies. Treat it as a serious pest.

The five entrance management rules

1. Reduce entrance to 1 to 2 cm in late August.

   Wooden entrance reducers are inexpensive and a permanent part of your autumn kit. Most beekeeping suppliers sell them for $1 to $3 each, or you can rip a strip of scrap wood to the right size. You can also find pre-cut options through a beehive entrance reducer on Amazon in standard Langstroth sizes.

   Use an entrance reducer or a wooden strip. A small entrance is easier for guard bees to defend. A large entrance is a wide-open gate for any bee that wants in.
2. Feed only in the evening. Once the foragers have stopped flying, the smell of syrup dissipates overnight and the bees can take it down without the apiary being raided by other colonies.
3. Never spill syrup on the outside of the hive. A puddle of syrup on the landing board is a five-alarm fire for robbers. Use a frame feeder inside the hive, a top feeder, or a baggie feeder. Avoid Boardman entrance feeders in summer — they leak and they smell.
4. Work fast during inspections. A hive open for 20 minutes in a dearth is a hive being robbed. Have a plan before you open. Pull the frame you need, make your decision, close the hive.
5. Close the hive immediately after manipulation. If you are moving frames between hives for boosting, do it quickly. If you are combining colonies, do it at the end of the day when the foragers are home.

How to recognise a robbing attack

Robbing looks different from orientation flights. The clues:

• Fighting at the entrance — bees wrestling, stinging, dying on the landing board.
• Bees zigzagging in front of the hive — robbing scouts land and lift off repeatedly, looking for a gap.
• Robbers coming from the side or the back of the hive — not from the front, where the guards are.
• Hive debris on the bottom board — chewed cappings, dragged-out larvae.
• Sudden silence from a normally noisy hive — when the defending population is exhausted.

If you see robbing in progress, act immediately:

1. Close the entrance entirely with a wet towel or a piece of foam for 10 to 15 minutes. The robbers will disperse, the colony will re-evaluate.
2. Reopen with a 1-cm entrance. The colony can defend that one bee at a time.
3. Move the feeder away from the hive. Feed only inside the hive from now on.
4. If the colony is overwhelmed, cover the entire hive with a wet sheet for an hour. The wet fabric confuses the robber scouts' orientation.

Strong colonies rob too

A common mistake: "My strong colonies wouldn't rob." Wrong. A strong colony in a dearth is the most efficient robber in the apiary. It has the population, the scouts, and the storage capacity. Any hive that is open, dripping, or unaccounted-for is a target. Robbing prevention is apiary-wide discipline, not a hive-by-hive decision.

Late-season robbing hot spots

• Open feeding stations — a common noble beekeeping practice that turns into a robbing magnet in August. Avoid open feeding in late summer.
• Equipment left out — a comb with honey left on the workbench is a robbing trigger. Store drawn comb in a closed box.
• Dead-outs from earlier in the season — a dead-out hive with residual honey or sugar syrup is a five-star robbing restaurant. Remove it from the apiary or seal it.

Understanding the Winter Cluster — Why the Food Arrangement Matters

To understand why August food arrangement matters, you need to understand what the colony does in November. The bees do not hibernate. They form a tight ball — a cluster — on the comb. The cluster has a centre where the queen lives, surrounded by bees generating heat by vibrating their flight muscles. The outer layer of the cluster is a shell of bees packed so tightly their bodies insulate the interior. The interior stays above 20 °C; the outer shell can drop to 8 °C.

The cluster moves slowly upward through the comb as it consumes the honey above it. The bees cannot move sideways across empty comb to reach food on the far side of the hive. If the food is above them, they move up. If the food is to the side and the path crosses empty comb, they starve with stores five frames away.

This is why the brood-in-the-middle, honey-on-the-sides arrangement is the winter gold standard. The cluster forms below the empty brood cells, eats upward into the honey arch, and remains in constant contact with food. No empty comb between the cluster and the honey. No sideways migration. No late-winter starvation.

If you get one thing right in August, get this right: honey on the sides and above the brood, brood in the centre, and no empty frames breaking the path between the cluster and its food.

August Week-by-Week — A Calendar That Actually Works

August is a month with a definite internal rhythm. Trying to do everything in one weekend at the end of the month is the most common mistake. Spread the work across the four weeks and the workload becomes manageable.

Week 1 (1 to 7 August): Finish extraction, prepare for the inspection

• Finish pulling and extracting the last honey of the season.
• Return the empty supers to the hives only if the bees still need them for clustering. Otherwise store them.
• Clean extraction equipment, settle and bottle last honey.
• Order queens if you plan to requeen this month. Order varroa treatment now — it sells out in August.
• Confirm frame count, brood box count, and entrance reducer availability for each hive.

Week 2 (8 to 15 August): Main inspection

• Walk every hive. Score queen pattern, frame count, food reserves.
• Mark hives needing requeen, merge, or aggressive feeding.
• Take the first mite count. Decide on the treatment strategy.
• Start comb rotation on the brood boxes — remove 2 to 3 dark frames per hive.
• Begin stimulating feeding on colonies that have low food reserves.

Week 3 (16 to 23 August): Requeen, combine, treat, feed

• Requeen colonies with poor queens. Introduce mated queens in the morning, without smoke.
• Combine weak colonies with strong ones over newspaper.
• Insert varroa treatment strips or start organic acid application on every hive.
• Continue stimulating feeding on schedule.
• Begin rearranging the brood nest — set up the winter layout.

Week 4 (24 to 31 August): Top up, narrow entrances, lock in

• Switch to thick 2:1 syrup for stores top-up on colonies that need it.
• Insert entrance reducers — 1 to 2 cm openings.
• Confirm winter food totals by weighing the hive back.
• Make sure each hive has a young queen, good populations, and adequate stores.
• Take the post-treatment mite count. Plan the November follow-up if needed.
• Clean and store extraction equipment for the year.

By the start of September, the August work is done. The colonies are on their winter track. The beekeeper's job shifts to monitoring and finishing the last of the feeding. The discipline you keep in August is the discipline that survives winter.

Frequently Asked Questions

From August Discipline to Spring Build-up

Every August apiary visit is a deposit into a spring account. The inspection you do in the first week of August determines the queen quality of the colony that builds up in April. The mite count you take in the third week determines whether the colony survives February. The food rearrangement you do in the fourth week determines whether the cluster can reach the honey in January. These are not separate decisions — they are one continuous chain of work that compounds across the five months of winter.

The discipline that pays off is the discipline of writing things down. A digital apiary record that captures queen scores, mite counts, frame counts, and food totals per hive gives you a single document to consult in November, in February, and in May. Without it, you are guessing. With it, you are planning. The difference between a 70% winter survival rate and a 95% survival rate is almost always the beekeeper's record-keeping discipline.

A tool like Beekeeping Diary is built for exactly this. Open the app on the morning of the inspection, walk the apiary, and log the queen rating, the mite count, and the food weight per hive. In February, you can sort by mite-count history to identify which yards need a stricter treatment plan. In May, you can sort by requeen history to see which queens gave you the best overwintering survival. The data compounds year over year, and the apiary becomes a manageable system instead of a stack of notebooks.

Take the time to do it right this month. The bees have spent the whole spring and summer building the populations that will go into winter. The least you can do is audit them, feed them, protect them from parasites, and arrange their food so they can survive the months ahead. August is the chapter of the beekeeping year that no one writes about. But it is the chapter that decides whether the next chapter — the spring buildup — is a success or a struggle.

🐝 Ready to log your August inspection? Open Beekeeping Diary on your phone, walk the apiary, and record queen scores, mite counts, and food totals per hive. The data you write this month is the data that gets you through winter.