The season plan sets the order and timing of the year's work. It is the most basic planning tool in beekeeping and is needed even by someone with a single colony.

Why a calendar is not enough

Fixed dates are becoming less reliable. Flowering shifts, autumns run warm, the broodless period narrows.

A working plan rests not on dates but on triggers: instead of "add a super on 15 April", "add a super when three quarters of the brood chamber is full".

Planning backwards

In beekeeping a plan is built backwards, not forwards.

When does the main flow open? The bees that will work it must have been laid as eggs about five weeks earlier. That fixes the date by which the colony has to start building up.

The same logic applies to winter: winter bees are reared in late summer, so the Varroa treatment must be completed before that.

The year and its triggers

• Late winter: Flying has started, pollen is coming in → first assessment, check stores
• Early spring: Brood area expanding → adjust space, check for a queen, measure Varroa
• Spring: Brood chamber filling → add a super, begin swarm checks
• Swarming season: Eggs in queen cups → inspection interval under eight days
• Main flow: Scale rising → give space, intervene little
• End of flow: Weight falling → harvest, reduce entrances
• Late summer: Winter bees to be reared → measure Varroa and act
• Autumn: Temperature falling → feed, reduce, fit mouse guards
• Winter: Cluster formed → observe from outside, do not open

The two critical windows

Swarming season: An eight-day inspection interval. Missed, it costs half the workforce.

Late summer: The Varroa treatment. Missed, the colony is lost in winter.

If you can only manage two things in a season, these are the two.

Writing your own calendar

Record each year:

• The date pollen first comes in
• The start and end of the main flow
• The date the first queen cell is seen
• Harvest dates and quantities
• Varroa measurement and treatment dates
• The weight going into winter

After a few seasons that record produces a plan no general calendar can give you.