What I actually do in the Brazoria County yard, month by month. This is Gulf Coast time — early spring, a tallow-heavy flow, then a hard summer dearth. It is not a northern calendar. Weather still moves the dates. Watch the hives, not just the page.
Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
Local timing follows what the Brazoria County Beekeepers Association teaches. The words here are mine, for this tote-stand yard.
January
Quiet yard, busy shop. On the Gulf Coast the bees still fly on warm days, but a cold snap plus empty stores will kill a hive faster than you think.
- Heft the hive. If it feels light, feed 2:1 syrup on a warm day — brood rearing can burn through 10 lb a week.
- Quick look only if it is 60°F, sunny, and calm: honey, pollen, brood, and bee numbers. Do not linger.
- Order queens, packages, or nucs for April if you have not already.
- Repair, scrape, and paint woodenware. Check stored supers for wax moths.
- Windbreak on the winter side. Tote stands help, but a north wind still finds the entrance.
- Mite check if you can do it without chilling the cluster; treat only if the count says so.
- A medium frame holds about 3–3½ lb of honey; a deep holds 5–6 lb. Know what you are hefting.
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February
Pollen starts coming in on warm days — that means brood is moving. This is still an easy month to starve a hive that looks busy at the entrance.
- Confirm a queen-right colony and decent stores on a 60°F sunny day. Keep the box open as little as possible.
- Combine anything under about two frames of bees. Weak now rarely makes spring.
- Finish mite treatments early enough that they are off before the April flow.
- Feed 2:1 if stores are thin. Brood eating honey plus a freeze is how January survivors die in February.
- Level the stands after winter heave. A little forward tilt so rain runs out.
- Open or widen entrance reducers late in the month if it warms and the doorway is congested.
- Good month to move hives at night or on a cold day while stores are still light.
- Paint and inventory supers so you are not scrambling in March.
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March
Build-up month. Eggs laid now become the foragers that hit the April flow. Swarm season is waking up whether you are ready or not.
- Full inspection on a calm day above about 55°F: stores, brood pattern, pests, and room for the queen to lay.
- Feed if the flow has not started. An expanding colony can starve in March.
- Give space — reverse double deeps if the queen is upstairs, pull swarm cells, add a super once medications are off.
- Splits and new queens if you planned them. Combine remaining weak colonies.
- Air mothballed supers several days before they go on a hive.
- Clean bottom boards, scrape burr comb and extra propolis, replace wrecked frames.
- Deadouts: clean them up. Burn comb and boxes from any American foulbrood kill.
- Have equipment painted and ready for packages and splits. Plan to have supers on by early April.
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April
Honey flow starts here. Packages and queens show up. Swarming and supering are the two jobs that decide your year.
- Keep empty comb in the brood nest so the queen can lay. Pull swarm cells. Set swarm traps.
- Supers on before you need them. When bees are working 6–8 frames in a super, add the next one.
- Install packages and queens as they arrive, or make nucs from strong colonies early in the month.
- Do not feed 1:1 once honey supers with drawn comb are on — that is how you get sugar honey.
- Leave the brood nest alone as much as you can. Watch stores on nucs and new packages.
- A nuc: two frames of brood and bees, one of pollen and honey, foundation on the outsides, then a queen.
- Keep at least two frames of honey per frame of brood in the hive body until the flow is truly on.
- No medications in any box that will be harvested as honey.
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May
Main flow and still swarmy. Chinese tallow is the big nectar plant on this coast. Stay ahead of the boxes.
- Check supers weekly. Do not wait for one to be full before adding another.
- If they are making honey, leave the brood box alone. Still glance for swarm cells and room under an excluder.
- No medicating this month.
- Keep feeding nucs and packages. Entrance reducers on small colonies so the big yards do not rob them.
- Check swarm traps. Order jars and lids if you are going to pull honey in June.
- Early full supers can come off, get extracted, and go back on to be refilled.
- Move nucs into full-size equipment as they outgrow the box.
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June
The main flow winds down through June and is typically over by early July. Harvest when frames are about three-quarters capped, on a dry warm day.
- Pull capped supers. Leave the bees enough for the summer dearth that follows.
- Get extractor, buckets, and lids clean before the rush. Wet supers go back on for the girls to lick out.
- Watch beetles on pulled comb — do not leave honey sitting open.
- New colonies can still be started, but they will need more feed than April starts.
- Robbing starts as the flow fades. Reduce entrances on weak hives and do not spill syrup in the yard.
- Ways to clear bees from supers: fume board in heat, escape board (extra trip), brush, bee blower, or smoke.
- This is the Brazoria calendar the club teaches: harvest can begin in June; the big nectar push is normally done by early July.
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July
Extraction month, then heat. After the flow, the yard turns into water, ventilation, mites, and not starving in the dearth.
- Finish pulling and extracting what is capped. Return wet supers for cleanup, then store them right.
- Store empty comb with paradichlorobenzene moth crystals — not naphthalene mothballs, which ruin wax and kill bees later.
- Water, every day. Shade if you can. Crack lids or use screened inner covers for airflow.
- Mite counts are climbing. Sample, then treat if you are over threshold.
- Heft for stores. If they are light, start feeding. Bees starve in July on the Gulf Coast.
- Freeze empty drawn comb a few days before storage to kill wax-moth larvae.
- Keep the crystal stacks sealed and check monthly — when the crystals are gone, so is the protection.
- Keep inspections short. Open boxes in a dearth start robbing.
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August
Hot, dry, and lean. Finish the honey work early, then protect the winter bees you have not raised yet.
- Finish extracting in the first part of the month. Leave fall honey for the bees — it is usually not the jar you want.
- Treat for varroa if the count is up. An alcohol wash around 5 mites per 100 bees means treat now.
- Combine weak colonies. A weak box in August becomes a beetle and wax-moth factory.
- Water and ventilation. Keep the yard clean — burr comb on the ground invites small hive beetles.
- If the brood box has fewer than about two frames of honey, start feeding. They can still starve in August.
- Melt or freeze cappings. Wet cappings can go back to foragers for a day or two — not more than three, or moths move in.
- Store cleaned supers cool, dry, and sealed with moth crystals. Tape cracks.
- Think about fall requeening for a hive that will actually winter.
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September
A short fall flow from goldenrod and asters on a good year. This is the last easy window to fix queens, mites, and stores before winter bees are in the box.
- Finish any leftover extracting. Store clean supers for winter.
- Mite check and treat with supers off. Decisions you skip now show up as deadouts in January.
- Replace failing queens. Combine weak with strong.
- Keep water on, and feed nucs or light colonies.
- A solid five-frame nuc made the first week of September will often winter and make a spring crop.
- Strong hives may store a little surplus on the fall weeds — most years I leave it for them.
- Get extra drawn comb on before the third week if you are trying to bank winter stores.
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October
Fall flow tapers toward frost. Button the yard up: mites, stores, entrances, and no more weak colonies going into winter alone.
- Mite check before and after any treatment. Finish medicating this month.
- If the brood box has fewer than two frames of honey, feed 2:1.
- Pull queen excluders so the cluster can move. Put entrance reducers on.
- Combine weak hives. Tilt stands so fall rain runs out, not in.
- Order spring queens, nucs, or packages, and any woodenware you want to build this winter.
- Keep the yard clean — no burr comb on the ground.
- Check stored supers; replenish moth crystals if they have vanished.
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November
Take your losses now. A light or queenless colony in November rarely becomes a good February hive.
- Entrance reducers on. Excluders off. Cluster in one or two boxes — not a tower of empty comb.
- Heft monthly. Minimum: a couple frames of honey in the brood nest. Feed if the back of the hive feels light.
- Combine anything that is not strong enough to cover its stores. Kill the worse queen and stack.
- Windbreak on the entrance if a north wind blows straight in. Screen bottoms can stay.
- Paint, assemble, and order for spring. Check moth crystals on stored comb.
- Keep a couple empty frames toward the outside walls so the cluster is not packed against cold honey it cannot reach.
- Treat mites if you still need to; some fumigants want the screen bottom closed off for the treatment window.
- Rotate out old dark comb when you are in there anyway.
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December
Leave them alone. Heft, feed if light, and use the shop days for next year.
- Do not tear the cluster down. Lift the back of the hive. If it is light, feed.
- Assemble and paint boxes and frames. Confirm moth crystals are still in the stored comb.
- Sweep dead drones and winter-kill off the stands so beetles and ants are not invited later.
- Place or confirm spring queen and package orders.
- Write down what worked and what you will not repeat. January 1 the calendar starts over.
- A windbreak still matters on the rare hard freeze.
- If you must look, pick a warm still afternoon and be fast.