Is it just me who feels a sense of relief in July? 

Bees are mostly out of swarm mode and can be recombined into nice strong colonies, once the new queen’s are showing a good brood pattern. This can take over a month after a new queen emerges, so be patient. 

New nucs are hopefully building up nicely. If you have not done disease checks, I would encourage you to have this as a main focus for one inspection in July, shaking the bees off the frames and looking for abnormalities, especially foulbrood. 

Celia Davies book the Honeybee Around and About has useful information on pests and diseases. 

Here’s what we are up to in July.

July inspections – Some people will inspect weekly in July as bees may still swarm and we know others who just leave them to it and add supers. Swarming is now unlikely if you have a 2025 queen or you are building up from a nuc or a swarm and disturbing the brood nest sets bees back so you need to find what works for you. 

We visit weekly and only take a peek if we feel we need to. 

We keep an eye on supers, but avoid disturbing the brood nest unless we think there might be a problem. We add another super on top as soon as the bees are working the top one. If it’s not drawn, we swap 2 undrawn frames in the middle with the drawn middle frames in the box below. We also sometimes move the last 2 undrawn frames to the middle of supers. Scratching frames of food in the brood box will encourage the bees to move food up into supers. 

The brood nest will start to contract, especially with older queens. Combining weaker colonies to make big strong colonies in early July will help maximise your summer crop.

Wasps – There are good years and bad years. I suspect that this year could be a bad one as Spring was very warm. 

Wasps can start to be a problem from mid to late July. Strong colonies cope with them, so this is another reason to combine weak colonies. You can reduce nuc entrances to the size of just one bee and reduce entrances on full colonies to ‘1 inch’ towards the end of July. 

‘Wasp Out’ entrances are very effective if you’re worried. We don’t use wasp traps near the apiary, they just seem to attract more wasps.

We should also continue to be on the look out for Yellow legged hornets. Remember they are slender, mostly black and have yellow legs. They are between the size of European hornets and wasps and have a single yellow band on their abdomen. Take a photo if you see something suspicious and report it via the App.

Heat concerns –  Sometimes July can be baking hot and bees may ‘beard’ outside the hive to make sure the brood nest does not overheat. Insulation under the roof will help prevent the heat from hot tin roofs reaching the hive. 

If you don’t have a pond or other water source near by, we find our bees love a bowl of water filled with marbles and a well watered compost heap. If we have really scorching days, strategically positioned shade from bigger potted plants and shrubs can help. On the plus side, really sunny days are great for melting wax down in a solar wax melter. 

Please also remember that any bees that are shut in for any reason can quickly die from overheating, so give them space and make sure they are well ventilated and shaded. Always use travel screens and mist with water if you lock bees in for moving purposes and consider how you ventilate the top box in a newspaper combination. (One option when combining, if you have an open mesh floor, is to block the lower entrance and add an eke with an entrance above the queen excluder and newspaper between the 2 boxes). Ensure entrances otherwise remain clear.
Next month I’ll talk about treating for varroa and summer extraction. In the meantime, please message if you have questions and I hope you and your bees are enjoying your summer.

References

Foulbrood Disease of Honey Bees

The Honey Bee Around and About by Celia Davis.