February 2026

in your Central Oregon Apiary

Hmmm, kinda wondering when/if winter is coming.  Other than the freezing fog week in January, there hasn’t been much cold weather.  Bees have been flying on and off since the middle of January and not just cleansing flights.  We’re seeing Manzanitas blooming and the bees trying to get nectar or pollen out of them.  The crocuses and snowdrops have buds out.

When we have early warm weather like this, the primary concern is that your colony will start raising brood, and while doing that will go through their food stores much faster.  Now would be a good time to check the stores in your hive.  For me, I like to heft the back (or front) of the hive, and it should feel significantly heavy.  If it doesn’t they’re probably light.  This isn’t a foolproof, or even a quantitative check, however, if in doubt, I recommend providing emergency food.  It’s cheap and easy to apply and the alternative might be starvation from which they don’t recover.  Emergency food would include fondant (sugar candy made for this) or sugar cakes primarily placed higher in the hive body where the humidity gathers.)

Once you’ve got the food stores figured out and/or taken care of, the next step is a winter mite treatment as probably the amount of capped brood is minimal compared to other times of the year.  I like Oxalic acid, either dribbled if it’s cooler or vaporized if warmer.  Please check the HBHC tools for varroa management for specifics.  It can also give you a qualitative efficiency of your treatment if you can put a sticky board in for 3 or 4 days after the treatment to see what the mite drop is.

If you’re going to be ordering bees, queens or hardware, this month is a great time to do it.  The nuc producers will fill up their orders this month (if they’re not already full) and woodenware may need to be assembled and painted.

Finally, as you’re a member of COBKA, there are several other opportunities.  We have a Beginners’ Bee School coming up on Feb. 7. After that, instead of a standard club meeting on Feb. 17, we’ll be getting together at Crux for an informal get together to talk about bees, beekeepers and beer. Additionally as a member of the Central Oregon Beekeepers Association, you are also a member of the Oregon State Beekeepers association.  If you’d like to be able to sign up for the state swarm list, discussion forums, other announcements, think about activating your access to the Oregon State Beekeepers Association.

Happy Beekeeping!

Allen Engle