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Welcome to the Brown bee wiki!

This wiki is intended to be a helpful resource for anyone keeping brown bees (Apis mellifera mellifera). The brown bee is the honeybee subspecies that occurs natively in the Nordic region. In the 20th century, other honeybee subspecies were introduced to this region by beekeepers. Today, the native brown bee is endangered due to displacement and introgression by these other subspecies. The great value of these bees, that appear well-adapted to the Nordic climate is slowly being recognized and conservation efforts are under way! The best conservation is of course the active use of these bees in beekeeping and honey production. All information in this wiki is tailored to brown bees, unless otherwise stated. We hope that this resource can help brown bee beekeepers with their day-to-day management of their hives. Obviously, exact dates for beekeeping activities will vary greatly by year and location, depending on the weather and flowering times of bee food sources. Please keep this in mind when reading this wiki!

Yours, the Brown Bee Network

	Winter to Spring	Spring	Early Summer	Mid Summer	Late Summer	Fall
Flowering		Hazelnut Willow	Apple trees Chestnut trees	Raspberry White clover	Heather	Hedera (DK) Birch turns yellow Leaves falling
Varroa	Spring treatment	Drone brood removal			Formic acid or thomyl treatment	Oxalic acid treatment in broodless colonies
Apiary health	Spring inspection Bottom board cleaning	Weak and queenless colony management	Summer inspection			Autumn inspection
Food supply	Remove surplus sugar frames			Check food supply	Feed	Take feeders off Add winter covers
Swarming			Check for queen cells	Make splits
Expanding		Add frames	Add supers	Add supers
Queen		Check queen presence and egg laying	Find and mark queen		Change queen
Harvest				Add queen excluder	Remove supers with honey
Equipment	Prepare equipment					Clean and maintain equipment