Dear Beekeepers,

Happy New Year to you & your bees!!! If you have a friend who is interested in beekeeping, recommend my Intro to Backyard Beekeeping class through Urban Farm Oasis. It starts this Saturday (recordings included). Details are here.

Want more Bee Knowledge in the New Year? My Bee Circle and Bay Area Beekeeping book will support you in your quest. Both are 25% through this Sunday, January 12th!

• BAY AREA BEEKEEPING GUIDE FOR URBAN BACKYARD BEEKEEPERS​
  My 80+ page online guide gives you clear guidance each month about what's important to do in the hive.
  ​Click here to read more about it & buy!
  ​Use this code for 25% off: SOLSTICESALE
  ​
• JOIN MY BEE CIRCLE​
  ​My Bee Circle includes a monthly bee clinic on Zoom where you can ask questions about your hive(s)! The January circle will be TODAY, January 7th, 6-7:30pm. I talk about a timely topic, & then answer questions about your hives. If you can't make it live, you can send questions ahead of time and listen to the recording. Membership also includes a great library of short how-to beekeeping videos. It's $25 monthly to join (unsubscribe anytime). Click here to join!​
  ​Use this code for 25% off a year subscription: SOLSTICESALE

2025 BEE MENTORSHIP
​Deadline for those with bee experience: Sunday, Jan. 12th​
If you love bees & really want to get to know them, this is the program for you! From February to October, we have a monthly in-person hive inspection plus Zoom classes. You can also text/email me questions about your hive(s) throughout. Your hives will not only live over winter, but they will likely multiple as we make splits in the spring.
​Read over the description & fill out quick application (link at bottom of description)!​

WARM WEATHER IN JANUARY ADVICE​
We're getting some weather above 60 degrees this week, which might tempt you to inspect. There are two reasons to hold yourself back.

One is that if your queen gets killed, the hive will likely die. Queens are unlikely to mate this early in the year, and mated queens are hard to get till April. By taking out frames to inspect, you risk killing your queen. A lot of propolis and cross comb between frames has been built up, making it more treacherous (for your queen).

The second reason is that it is a stressful time for the bees. It is only 60 degrees for 2-4 hrs and the nights are long. They don't need the added work of cleaning up and recovering from an inspection. Inspecting could also be so stressful that they kill their queen. This is super important for small hives that are 3-5 frames of bees. Don't take out frames to inspect. Feed pollen patty and close up quickly.

My recommendation for backyard beekeepers is to only inspect (remove frames) if you have a good reason.
Instead do things that don't involve inspecting to figure out the health of the hive. The number 1 thing to do in the next couple days is the 24 Hour Mite Drop to monitor mites.

• 24 Hour Mite Drop
  ​Here is a 26 min lecture I gave last January about how to do the 24 hour Mite Drop. I like to do one or two in January to verify mite levels are low. If you didn't sugar roll since October or earlier, the sooner you can do this, the better.
  If you get above 50 mites, you want to treat with Formic Pro/Mite Away OR inspect and do a sugar roll test.
  If you get 20-50 mites, I would do the drop 1-2 additional times and see if it's lower. It can be high on a day when a lot of brood hatches out, and skew the result.

Here are reasons I would inspect (open the hive & take out frames):

• Entrance Activity on sunny afternoon is very low/has diminished over past month​
  Open hive and look at top box. If it's essentially empty of bees, take off box and look through lower boxes to see bee population. You want the bees to be filling up the wood hive, so they can protect and keep the brood warm.
  ​If hive population has shrunk a lot: Take off upper boxes using Bee Quick, so hive size fits bee population.
• HIGH result from 24-Hour Mite Drop​
  I might sugar roll if I got a couple consecutive high mite drops, especially 20-50 counts. A sugar roll will allow me to pinpoint how much Formic Pro/Mite Away to apply. I don't want to apply 2 strips at once at this time of year, because it can kill the queen. Instead of sugar rolling, I may instead put 1 Formic Pro/Mite Away strip on if I got 20-50 counts. That will hopefully buy me some time at worst and at best deal with the mites. Do another 24-hour Mite Drop two weeks after treating to see if the levels have gone down.

Bee Quick is your friend. If you left a lot of honey on a hive (2 boxes) or the hive feels really heavy, use Bee Quick for 2-5 minutes on the top box to remove the bees. Then, go through it to remove capped honey to harvest. There could be brood (& your queen) in the top box. That's why you want to use Bee Quick, rather than inspect (take out frames). You can also wait till February to remove honey. It's not going anywhere...

My Hive is packed with bees. Should I add a box?​
That's great that your hive is packed with bees at this time of year. They can protect from ants well. They can also easily keep the brood warm. You want the hive packed with bees. If you add a box to the top in January, the bees will fill it with honey. It does nothing for swarm prevention, so I prefer to wait. I add a box to the top of the hive around February 1st (yes, I'll send an email reminder), as that is when the bees want to expand their broodnest. The days are longer, the sun is higher in the sky, and the foragers can finally bring in more pollen. A box added around Feb. 1st is my KEY to early swarm prevention.

Oops - I went on a lot longer than I intended. If you have more questions/topics, let me know!

May 2025 be filled with great friendship with and appreciation for your BEES! -Jennifer

Jennifer Radtke, Learn from the Bees​
​Mentorships, Education, & Advice for Urban Beekeeping in the Unique SF Bay Area Climate

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