The Colony Year — Printable 18×24 Wall Chart, The Beekeeping Year in Six Seasons

 The whole beekeeping year as a wheel, because it is a cycle and a list makes it look like a line.

Six seasons, each with what the colony is doing and what that asks of you. Late winter: brood rearing restarts and starvation risk is at its highest, which surprises people who think winter is the quiet part. Spring: buildup and swarm season. Early summer: the main flow — supers on, and otherwise leave them be. Late summer: harvest, and then treat for varroa. Autumn: feed, reduce the entrance, mouse guard on, and the winter bees are being reared now. Winter: the cluster, and leaving them alone.

The late summer wedge is filled solid on the chart, because that is the one that decides everything. Mites peak exactly when the winter bees are being reared — which is why the colony that looked strong in September is dead in January.

Underneath, how to monitor rather than guess: an alcohol wash of about 300 bees from a brood frame, confirm the queen is not among them, express the result as mites per hundred bees, at least four times a year and always in late summer. Thresholds are regional and get revised, so the chart sends you to your state apiarist for the current action level rather than printing a number that will go stale on your wall.

A single sheet, 18 × 24 inches. Print it at any copy shop, office store or online print service — ask for 18 × 24 on matte or satin paper. You get a print-ready PDF and a PNG.

Adapted from public-domain US government and extension service material, redrawn and set fresh. Not an official publication and not endorsed by any agency. Instant download — print it as many times as you like.