Alaskan Extreme Beekeepers Association

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 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 21: Harlow Family Farms pick-up venues and times across Alaska:

Anchorage, Homer, & Vicinity: Anchorage Int’l Airport Cargo Office 5:00- 5:30AM

Mat-Su Valley/Kenney Lake: Three Bears on Pittman Road – 7:00 – 7:30AM

Fairbanks & Vicinity: Dave Greer’s hanger – 3560 South University East Ramp 6:00 - 7:00PM

 

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 5^th – May 8^th:

·        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 15^th – 18^th:

·        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 25^th -28^th:

·        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 4^th – June 7^th:

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 14^th – June 17^th:

Perform a regular hive check, making sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.

June 24^th – June 27^th:

Perform a regular hive check, making sure to keep any grasses, etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.

July 4^th – July 7^th:

Perform a regular hive check making sure to keep any grasses etc. cut short in front of the hive entrance.

July 14^th -17^th:

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 28^th –July 31^st:

Perform a regular hive check keeping entrance free of weeds and grass!

August 7^th -10^th:

·        Perform a regular hive check.

·        It’s time to start robbing honey!

·        Keep entrance free of weeds and grass!

WINTERING PREPARATIONS  -August 22^nd – 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 9^th:

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.

Ratchet strap hive bodies together from top to bottom to ensure they do not get knocked over during winter m

2026 Beekeeping Tips and Tools

 Harlow Family Farms is bringing in 4 lb. packages again this year from OH Honeybees.

Varieties include:

There are many vendors selling new equipment and here are the ones I have purchased from:

Local Equipment & Tool Vendors: 

Dragonfly Farms (Fairbanks, Alaska) Janet & Cameron Carter 907-378-8464)

About Us - Alaska Wildflower Honey LLC - (Big Lake, Alaska)

On-line Equipment & Tool Vendors: 

Mann Lake | Largest Manufacturer & Supplier of Beekeeping Supplies

Quality Beekeeping Supplies & Accessories | Dadant & Sons

Here are some great resources that I have used and recommend:

Beekeeping in Western Canada | Book | Dancing Bee Equipment — Dancing Bee Equipment Manitoba

Beehive Alchemy: Projects and recipes using honey, beeswax, propolis, and pollen to make soap, candles, creams, salves, and more: Ahnert, Petra: 9781631594915: Amazon.com: Books

The Honey Files: A Bee's Life

2025 Interior Alaska Beekeeping Workshop

Dawn Cogan's 2025 Beekeeping Workshop 

• March 15 & 16, 2025
• 1-6 pm both days for a total of 10 hours
• Venue: Monroe Catholic School
• 615 Monroe Street, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701

SYLLABUS:

What is responsible beekeeping? How much honey will I harvest?

What is the start-up cost as a first-year beekeeper?

• Equipment necessary to keep bees in Alaska

• Biology and races of honeybees
• Members of the hive and their duties

• Colony Management techniques & tricks

• Where to obtain bee equipment. New, used or building your own equipment.

• Preparing equipment for the arrival of bees - Insulation, feeding bees properly

• What to do when the bees arrive
• Is my queen marked? (queen marking tool)

• Running 2-Queen Hives
• Swarming and how to prevent it
• Honeybee diseases
• Extracting your Alaska honey
• Wintering Honeybees
• Storing your equipment
• Beeswax candle making, lip balm, and lotion bar manufacturing

Hands-on Projects:

1) Management of honeybee colonies in Alaska, The Beekeeper's Calendar

2) Constructing a hive in class

3) Colony Collaboration (team game)

Used, disease-free equipment will be available for sale this year!

Includes your own copy of our Beekeeping Handout Book

Door prizes: 1 free package of live honeybees, miscellaneous beekeeping tools, a free consultation with Dawn Cogan, a free extraction tools rental

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/ZaH31fuu9T

Payment Link: https://square.link/u/vfp1t92G

Find Interior Alaska fellow beekeepers on Facebook: Alaskan Extreme North Beekeepers

First Hive Checks

 

First Hive Checks

 Apiary Update:

Here are examples of how queens should be laying excellent patterns of brood:

         

    

Examples of a "spotty queen":

Spotty queens can be replaced however, replacing a queen can be a risk because the colony might not accept a new queen once established.

Main tasks at this time:

1) Keep bees nourished with 1:1 sugar water and pollen patties;

2) Keep bees warm;

3) Regular hive checks every 10 -12 days; EVERY 10 days IS BEST PRACTICE!

4) Remove queen cups and cells after confirming you have evidence of a queen (eggs, larva, and pupa);

Queen Cup Examples:

Queen cell examples:

    

        

5) Remove any burr comb and save it for melting down for wax products (see examples below):

    

    

• Burr comb is always drone comb.

• When a queen lays an egg in drone comb, the egg will become an unfertilized bee - a drone!

• The more drones a hive has, the more the female workers have to labor to keep the colony nourished well.

• Keeping a small population of drones is important, however, in case you lose your queen. The colony needs drones available to mate with a newly hatched queen.

No Eggs or Larva? 

You probably have a queenless colony if you can't find eggs and larva. This needs to be addressed immediately!

Call Dale Lupton 907-978-1455 to order a new queen.

• If your colony is queenless for more than a couple weeks, some of the workers will develop ovaries and fill cells with multiple unfertilized eggs which become drones. 

• A colony in this condition will eventually have a full population of drones and will die out. 

• Also, this alters the comb in a very undesirable way - worker cells become drone cells - All drone comb must be removed to prevent future queens from laying high populations of unfertilized, drone eggs.

Examples of laying workers:

    

                  

        

Laying Worker Drone Comb:                   

What to do about laying workers:

• Have a replacement queen on hand in a queen cage.
• Lay a white flatbed sheet or blanket on the ground at least 50 feet and preferably with a  building between the hive and the sheet;
• Carry each frame over the sheet and shake off all the bees;
• Place the frame into a tote or a cooler with a lid making sure no bees are on the frames;
• Hang the new queen in the middle of the top brood box, leaving the cap on the queen cage so the bees will have time to get used to the new queen's pheromones (If you quick release the queen, the colony may kill her);
• Put all the frames back into the hive boxes.

Any workers who have not developed ovaries will reenter the hive and laying workers will not be allowed back into the hive.

You must re-queen the colony since they will not be able to create their own queen at this late date.

Honeybee Package Rebate

Spring 2024 Honeybee Package Rebate

People who order honeybees from James and Lisa Harlow can receive a $7.00 per package rebate when they return the plastic shipping cage to be recycled.

4 lb. Honeybee Package Prices from James & Lisa Harlow

 

New Honeybee Distributor for Interior Alaska

Hello Folks,

Ordering honeybees has just gotten easier and more economical.

Interior Alaska has new honeybee distributors: James & Lisa Harlow.

I am ordering my bees from James and Lisa this year.

They have a small family farm north of Fairbanks and are having great success using a wintering shed to winter honeybees. I've been wintering along with them for the past several years and we have 11/12 colonies going strong so far this winter. One Russian colony is in its third winter with the same mother queen!

Check out their family blog: https://rosehipsandhoney.com/

1. Complete your pre-order to reserve colonies and species.

2. Prices will be available at the end of January or first week in February.

3. Complete final payment must be submitted by March 15, 2024. 

SPRING 2024 ORDER FORM:

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAO__Yx2QqtURFVJRFRQNEg2T05HODdDNFk5MDY0M1JCWC4u