Beekeeping Newsletter - Late Summer 2026
- Grai St. Clair Rice
- 18 hours ago
- 6 min read
The Abundance of Late Summer
Late summer abundance is everywhere…Wildflowers along the roadsides, farm stands overflowing with produce, and busy hives exuding the scent of warm beeswax and ripening nectar. Relish the gifts of nature and surrounding beauty, and thank all the pollinators that have helped create our abundance.
As the angle of the sun is shifting lower and the days are shortening, beekeepers are assessing the colonies under their care and thinking through the tasks needed to assist colonies not in prime state heading towards the lean months.
In the northeast, August is when colonies begin raising the “winter” bees that will take the colony thru the coldest months, until gradually replaced by spring bees in late winter. The volume of healthy bees going into late autumn is equally as important as the volume of honey and pollen reserves in their combs.
Now is the time to to make sure there is abundance in your hives
Without the ability to forage, bees must rely on stores, both within the hive and within their own bodies. The fat body organ in the abdomen is the internal protein reserves, with the honey surrounding the clustering bees as the energy source, required for maintaining sufficient warmth for survival. Stored pollen is utilized as the brood rearing begins again midwinter.
There are still magical summer days ahead, and although it's never fun to contemplate the harshness of the coming winter, your bees need attention now. Be a proactive bee tender at this critical time. It's pure joy and accomplishment when your hives pull through winter, and flourish in the spring.
Midsummer Beekeeping Tasks -
Comb production for the year is over.
Bees rarely engage in comb building, as the focus of colony shifts. Remove unbuilt frames, and begin to tighten up hives.
Knocking down the Varroa mite population is critical.
By midsummer, Varroa counts can exponentially build to a dangerous threshold for colony health, carrying pathogens and compromising the vital fat body organ of the worker bees.
Long-lived “Winter” bees begin to be raised in August.
A colony’s winter survival is predicated on the summer bees raising a large number of healthy, well-nourished winter bees, with adequate and well positioned honey stores within the hive.
Dearth conditions can effect brood production.
Monitor the nectar and pollen supply within hives for signs of dearth, as a result of not enough rain, too much rain, or insufficient blooming in the foraging area. If necessary, consider feeding colonies internally.
Protect colonies from robbing culture.
As the season advances, strong, hungry colonies can threaten weaker colonies. Keep entrances tight, feed internally, and make sure to cover honey supers when your attention is focused elsewhere. Robbing culture is difficult to stop.
Assess colony health, and act quickly to support if needed.
Ascertaining colony strengths and weaknesses early enough to take action is key to preparing the apiary for winter. Make note of concerns and act according to the needs of each colony.
Protecting Valuable Assets
Frames with good built out comb are one of a beekeeper’s most valuable assets. Having brood frames ready for spring spilts and swarms is immensely helpful, as is having good honey frames for identified major nectar flows, such as Black Locust or American Basswood.
Beeswax is metabolically expensive for worker bees to create from their wax glands, and the intensive communal process of transforming those crystalline wax scales into hexagonal comb is additionally taxing on a colony.
Consider good comb frames as critical tools that a beekeeper accumulates over time.
Comb building is rarely an activity this late in the season, and comb that was built in the springtime of abundance may not have been filled and capped. Late summer is a time for tightening up colonies in preparation for colder weather.
It’s critical to remove unbuilt frames and most empty comb as the season enters September. If goldenrod is a major forage around your apiary leave some empty built comb until later. Remember that nectar flows require storage space, which then is condensed down into honey.
If there is nectar in comb that you want the worker bees to take down, place a few frames in a box above the inner cover, making sure to keep them spread apart. Usually, although not always, the bees use the combs as a feeding source and move the nectar into position below, backfilling the brood area or other frames with nectar still curing into honey.
Safely storing comb frames is essential for productive apiary management.
Mice, wax moths and Small Hive Beetles (SHB) can all wreck havoc on comb if not properly stored. Prevention is key.
Most comb pests are deterred by light and air, preferring dark enclosed environments. Creating hangers for stored comb frames or even just tilting supers on their ends with the bottom of frames facing a window can assist against SHB and wax moths. Mice are another scenario.
SHB can devastate and slime stored comb extremely rapidly during the warm months, beginning in June. They can overwinter with colonies and will sometimes eat honeybee eggs if unchecked in a hive. Work bees have adapted and tend to imprison the SHB in the corners of upper boxes or in empty comb frames. Hive inspections cause the “SHB Jail” to disperse, with beetles running for cover.
Never store pollen frames untended during the warm months. Storing in a freezer until safely being able to move to a cold shed is a helpful option for protection. Managing for SHB in active hives is an entire subject not delved into here.
Wax moths, both greater wax moths (Galleria mellonella) and lesser wax moths (Achroia grisella), can also do extensive damage to comb. The moths are most interested in the residual cocoons of the brood comb, recognized by the darker comb. They are less likely to damage comb that has no cocoon afterbirth, however they can damage some stored pollen, and tunnel through honey and comb during their larval stage.
In nature, wax moths may assist feral colonies in destroying old comb, making room for fresh comb within a hollow tree.
If comb is removed in the late summer/fall, stored in a cold place over-winter, and put back on hives in a timing fashion come spring… all should be fine. Usually, in environments that freeze, wax moths do not become a problem until late June, however beware of storage in a warm place.
If comb will be stored into the summer months, or in a basement/garage that does not freeze, consider biological protection from wax moths.
A product called Certan B402 uses Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a bacterium found in nature that kills wax moths in the larval stage. This group of bacteria controls the moths by producing a crystallized protein that is toxic to the larvae, when they eat it.
This is considered an organic product that leaves no residue in wax or honey, and is not toxic to bees.
The refrigerated, concentrated liquid is diluted with water and sprayed on comb frames before storage, and should last into the following season. It’s best if this is done prior to infestation.
A moth-ball type chemical product called Para-Moth has been utilized by commercial entities for years, however the wax holds the intense odor for days and the product is deadly to honeybees in an active hive. It is considered to be carcinogenic, thus beware. Never use regular moth balls.
Spring management and honey production are aided by good comb.
Once a beekeeper has built up a collection of good brood comb with worker-sized cells for spring usage, and clean built honey supers to offer to colonies during a nectar flow, the bees and the beekeeper will be less stressed and more efficient.
Goodbye Drones
Good drones are essential to the next generation of queens. Their appearance in the early spring indicate that the season is maturing into swarm season. We love our drones for their genetics and their utter sweetness.
They are fed and taken care of by the workers throughout their lives, until they're not. It is a sad state of affairs for drones when the worker bees decide it is time for them to go.
Colonies that have swarmed, and successfully re-queened, may decide to render their drones to fate early in the summer, once the hive has stabilized, and the attention turns to rebuilding the population. Dearth conditions can also precipitate drone expulsion midsummer, if nectar is scarce.
Almost like clockwork as the season winds down, which can occur simultaneously across the apiary, the remaining drones are barred from reentry into the hives. The workers block the entrance, refuse to feed them and sometimes vigorously jump on the drones to make sure the action is clear.
Bye-bye sweet drones.
Stay tuned for the next beekeeping newsletter
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Citations & Links
Vita Bee Health. “New Biological Wax Moth Control for USA.” Vita Bee Health. https://www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/news/new-biological-wax-moth-control-for-usa/
About the Author:
Grai St. Clair Rice
Grai has been a beekeeping educator since 2006. She teaches beekeeping classes, coaches beekeepers, does public presentations, writes about Honeybees and gardening for pollinators, and consults on landscape plantings. More at BeeJoy >>
