• Attend classes
• Read books (Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile’s The Beekeeper’s          Handbook and Tom Seeley’s Honeybee Democracy are two of our favorites)
• Join the Marin Beekeepers Association  

Winter before getting your bees: 

• Order equipment and bees

Spring: 

• Get your bees!
• Learn how to inspect your hives and prevent swarming.
• Attend classes and get as much info as possible

Summer: 

• Monitor your hive to control swarming.
• Learn to recognize when – and what – to feed, if necessary.
• Help protect (and prevent) robbing by yellow jackets, ants and other bees.
• In late summer, start to monitor varroa mite levels.

Fall:    

• Continue monitoring % infestation of varroa mites
• Learn about mite management options
• Harvest excess honey not needed by the bees for winter. (Not always                             possible in your colony’s first year.)

Winter: 

• Clean up equipment from dead out colonies.
• Learn to identify American Foulbrood.