08/27/2025
Sharing some wise words from one of our friends, Jonathan Showalter, Beeline of Michigan
#6: Keeping Bees Now for Next Spring | August 23, 2025
It’s that time of year. Important as beekeeping activities are prior to now, this is probably the most crucial. What should you be doing for your bees now for next spring?
Pull honey.
That is beekeeper’s jargon for “honey harvesting” or “honey removal” or “taking the honey”. In most of our northern latitudes the honey flow is over. Golden rod is just starting and aster will follow but unless you are an experience beekeeper and live where those flowers yield nectar enough to give a crop worth harvesting, it is likely not worth trying to benefit from it. It will be bonus honey for the bees but nothing for you as a beekeeper to profit from or rely on for the bees.
Take as much of the honey as you can. Contrary to common notion, it is not better to let the bees have their own honey for the winter. That might sound surprising, but you will need to feed anyway, and they will need room in a double deep to raise brood and store what you give them. Go ahead. Take all the honey you can take, even down in the brood chamber. Comb that has been darkened by brood will not hurt the honey. It will be a little harder to uncap but take it anyway. If you would rather not extract from deep frames, just put it in the freezer and when you are making the last rounds in your bees before winter you can put it back on hives that are light.
Inspect.
Make a thorough inspection of each hive. Look at brood pattern. If it is solid and there are still eggs, the queen is good. If there are no eggs, either the queen has died and the bees are making a new queen or the queen shut down because of a dearth. Learning moment—you should have been feeding to keep that from happening. Valuable time has been lost, and the hive has been placed at risk. If there is no queen in the colony and they are not making a new queen, the situation is really grave. It is highly likely that there will not be enough bees or time for you to introduce a new queen and get the hive ready for winter. There could even be laying workers in which case it is too late. But if there seems to be hope or you want the experience, get a new queen as soon as possible. Put her and a frame or two of young brood and bees in and hope for the best.
Look for disease. Bees with deformed wings is a bad omen. Again, brood pattern will tell you a lot. Slumped, brownish pupa signal European foulbrood or parasitic mite syndrome—result of a cocktail of viruses vectored by mites. Mite load is probably high. Learning moment number two. More attention to mites and health prior to this would likely have prevented this condition. But hey, live and learn. Do different next year. For now, treat for mites. Requeening might help but, again, time is of the essence. And hope for the best but expect a dead hive long about November. Part of the learning curve.
Think about population. Remember that a hive overflowing with bees in August is good, but if most of those are old bees, the hive will look quite different in a month as those bees die off.
Treat.
For mites, of course. The treatment of choice for this time of year is formic acid. Shop Formic Pro Strips here. Just make sure the temperature will be less than 85 degrees for at least two days. Treat whether mite load is high or not. It most likely is and if it isn’t it soon will be as population naturally dwindles and mite reproduction explodes. Knock them back hard. Now.
Of course, SuperDFM would be a good treatment. And if there are signs of Nosema and American Foulbrood, those need dealt with also. But mites are the big one.
Requeen.
This is risky this time of year. But if you determine that your hive is worth saving or that a mediocre queen has to go, take the risk. However, don’t try to get the colony to raise their own queen by simply killing the old one. There isn’t enough time to get a new one raised, mated, and laying for a sufficient population of new bees for winter. Find a new queen from someone, kill the old one (make absolutely sure you find her), and introduce the new one as soon as possible.
Feed.
I fear that your eyes will glaze over, and your ears grow dull of hearing on this one because I have emphasized it so much before. But this is no joke. That queen must keep laying prolifically until cold weather and clustering naturally shuts her down. Remember, bees during summer and fall will not raise brood on stored honey. They must have some sort of nectar flow, either natural or simulated. This is why you must take responsibility and feed those bees. A good colony will take a gallon a week of thinned sugar water or high fructose corn syrup through the end of October at least. Don’t be afraid of overfeeding. You can’t. Feed heavily.
Honey B Healthy in the syrup is recommended. And pollen substitute won’t hurt even though there is a lot of natural pollen in the hive. Recent research indicates that some of the agricultural fungicides in use today are preventing proper fermentation of the pollen into beebread and so the pollen that is stored may not be worth anything.
I know this sounds like a lot of work and expense for little immediate profit. But what do you want? A healthy, heavy hive with lots and lots of young bees that will be alive next spring? Or a sickly, weak hive that will be dead by March and being forced to buy another nuc?
That’s why now is so crucial.
- Jonathan Showalter | Beeline of Michigan
