August 2025 Newsletter

Happy Honey Days!

If the nectar flow in your area is still on, it should be winding down soon. Any nectar that comes in late in the season can be stored in the brood boxes for winter so resist putting any more honey supers on. If your top brood box is not mostly full with sealed honey, consider feeding sooner rather than later using a heavy 2:1 syrup.  The bees have a much easier time converting feed to winter stores when the days and nights are still warm.  Our bees need roughly 75-100 lbs. of honey for winter, basically the equivalent of one deep box full.  Don’t worry if the center frame in your top box is not sealed honey, the bees leave that open for the cluster to move up into during winter.

With the slowing of the nectar flow, larger colonies may begin robbing from smaller/weaker colonies.  Make your inspections short and cover any open boxes.  Leaving honey supers exposed can encourage robbing.  If you see robbing while inspecting, close the colony up and put corks and an entrance reducer in.  If the robbing continues, throw a wet sheet over the colony being robbed for the rest of the day.  Robbing screens are helpful to prevent robbing from starting.

August is a particularly important month for varroa mite management.  Not only do our mite populations peak this time of year, it is also when our crucial winter population of bees is raised.  If you haven’t tested for mites, do so ASAP to see if your bees need treatment.  If you have more than 2 mites per 100 bees you should pull supers and treat. Many treatments will work with supers on (always read the label) but are often more effective without supers.  Mites feed on the fat bodies of the developing bees and our winter bees needs and have larger fat bodies to be able to live the 6 months or so needed before the spring population of bees replace them.  A colony can appear large and healthy in the fall, but if they have mites, those bees will likely die in February or March.  The Honey Bee Health Coalition has a good online tool to help you make a mite management plan:   https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroatool/

Many beekeepers have started to harvest honey, but if you want to wait for cooler days, that is fine too.  If your honey supers are filled and mostly/all sealed, you can pull them.  Supers should be extracted within a few days and kept warm unless you are extracting the same day that they are pulled. If you are storing them for any longer, stack them cantilevered in case there are any small hive beetles.  A small room and a dehumidifier kept around 80 degrees will keep the honey liquid enough to extract.  Honey needs to be less that 18.6% moisture to bottle, or it will eventually ferment. If you honey supers are more than 80% capped your honey should be fine, but test with a refractometer if possible. If your honey is too high in moisture, it is possible to dry it in a warm(>75dF) dry (<50% humidity) room with some air circulation over several days.  Check the moisture level daily if you are attempting this method. Last year’s honey harvest seemed to crystalize faster and it was a good reminder to bottle your honey before that happens.  Remember to never extract outside, you will attract bees. Also, do not leave wet, extracted supers out for the bees to “clean” as this will encourage robbing.  Wet supers can be placed above the inner cover when the nights are cool and the bees will go up to clean them out and return to the cluster below.

Hopefully you are looking forward to the State Fair, I know I am! Good news that construction on 94 will be halted for the thousands of visitors.  If you haven’t considered entering anything in Honey and Bee, you should! Check out all the fun categories here:   https://www.mnstatefair.org/competitions/ag-hort-bee/bee-and-honey/

The U of MN Bee lab will be organizing the Beard of Bees on Wednesday the 27th at 1pm featuring Bee Ambassador Lilja Anderson, I hope to see many of you there!

As always, please contact the Bee Squad if you have any questions at: [email protected]

Jenny