2026 Interior Alaska Beekeepers Calendar
by Dawn Cogan of Science-Based Art of Alaska
This is a tentative beekeeping schedule for Interior Alaska, 2026. These dates and activities are subject to change depending on when your bees arrive and are placed in the hive, the weather, and unforeseen circumstances.
Regardless, I will be posting updates on our blog: http://sciencebasedart.blogspot.com throughout the summer season.
April 22:
Honeybees arrive at Dave Greer’s hanger in the evening on the east ramp.
April 25 through April 28:
· First queen check (50* or warmer). Do not complete a full hive check if it is too cold. If temperatures are above 50*, look for eggs. If you find no eggs, check again in three days.
· Do not let sugar water run out! Keep filling feeder every 3-5 days.
May 5th – May 8th:
· Perform a complete hive check (50* or warmer). You should see eggs and larval, and possibly some pupa. If you still do not find eggs, either contact an experienced beekeeper or if you are absolutely positive there are no eggs or larva, purchase a new queen and slowly release her (using a mini-marshmallow like you did during the initial hiving).
May 15th – 18th:
· Perform a complete hive check. You should have several frames of brood (eggs, larva & pupa) and some cells should be empty.
· You may need to add a second brood box at this time if the bees have only a couple frames with no brood in them. This is called, “adding bee space” so the queen doesn’t run out of room to lay eggs.
· If the brood pattern is “spotty”, or you find many empty cells, something is wrong! You should either re-queen or unite your colony with another colony – (After killing the spotty queen). Your bees are not getting enough food if they have no stored sugar water and/or no pollen in cells. One good indication of this is if your bees are running over the frames “shaking.” If this is the case, feed them sugar water as well as frames with stored honey. If you find eggs and emerging adult bees (being born) but no larva, and your hive is suffering from a lack of pollen stores. In this case, give your bees a pollen honey at room temperature. We may need to remove sugar feeders at this time placing a frame or two where the sugar feeder is removed.
· Another problem that arises is having laying worker bees. If you find cells with several eggs on the cell wall and in the bottom of a single honeycomb cell, you have any number of laying workers, which only lay unfertilized eggs (drones). This is caused by having a queenless colony or a queen that is not bred well for too long (usually 2-3 weeks).
· Lay out a queen-sized white sheet on the ground at least 50 feet away or on the other side of a building and take one or two frames at a time from the hive to the sheet, shaking the bees off the frames and onto the sheet. Laying workers will not be allowed back in the hive.
· Do not let sugar water run out! Keep filling feeder every 3-5 days.
· Make sure to keep any grasses, etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.
May 25th -28th:
· Perform a complete hive check, looking for sugar water and pollen stores.
· Look for all stages of brood.
· Remove sugar water feeders as long as local plants are blooming and sugar stores are well-stored.
· Swarm prevention time!! If you know your queen is healthy and laying from the evidence of eggs, larva, and pupa, kill any “swarm cells/queen cells/supersedure your cells.”
· If your queen is “honey bound” (has very little empty cells to lay eggs in) then you need to reverse your hive bodies and add a honey super.
· Depending on the weather, you may need to turn or take your entrance reducer out completely.
· Make sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.
*Remember:
· Queen cells are usually on the sides and bottoms of frames- take your time moving slowly as you check for queen cells. Sometimes it is easy to miss them! If you miss one, your colony is in danger of swarming!!
· Keep removing queen cells every 10 to 12 days.
· Demaree handout is a good tool at this time.
June 4th – June 7th:
Perform a regular hive check. Make sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance. June is the swarming month!
Adding honey super boxes will take place sometime in the first two weeks of June.
Do not use queen excluders with supers containing bare foundation! The bees will treat the excluder as a “ceiling” and will rarely if ever draw-out the honeycomb.
Add the queen excluder below honey supers three weeks prior to honey robbing after ensuring the queen is in the brood boxes, so all the brood hatches out before harvesting and extracting.
June 14th – June 17th:
Perform a regular hive check, making sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.
June 24th – June 27th:
Perform a regular hive check, making sure to keep any grasses, etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.
July 4th – July 7th:
Perform a regular hive check making sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.
July 14th -17th:
Perform a regular hive check keeping the entrance free of weeds and grass!
· Cage Queens on hives not being wintered over, making sure the court is well secured, hanging the caged queen between two frames with the screen accessible by worker bees.
July 28th –July 31st:
Perform a regular hive check keeping entrance free of weeds and grass!
August 7th -10th:
· Perform a regular hive check.
· It’s time to start robbing honey!
· Keep entrance free of weeds and grass!
WINTERING PREPARATIONS -August 22nd – August 25th:
Once all honey has been removed from the honeycomb, and sticky frames have been cleaned up by the colony, condense hive bodies down to one brood box using a bee escape board. Start feeding 2:1 sugar water to ensure bees are properly nourished and winter stores are building.
September 6th – September 9th:
Perform a regular hive check, making sure the entrance is free of weeds and grass!
Mid-September:
Keep feeding your bees 2:1 sugar water.
Finally:
Store equipment by putting a queen excluder between the bottom board and the bottom brood box to discourage rodents from entering and eating any leftover honey, pollen stores, and destroying next season’s wax.
Cover up any holes in the hive with fine mesh screen by stapling it to the hive body or placing a cork in the hole. Leave your hive outside on foundation bricks or some sort of elevated surface to discourage mold, mildew, or spring water damage. I keep mine either under the roof eaves of my house or in a connex box.
No comments:
Post a Comment