+1 on the other two suggestions above. Good hints.
Loosen the hair until several of them are clearly loose, but not so loose so that all of the hair can lie against the stick (gets the stick all messy, and the hair is more vulnerable to kinking, damage, etc. if it is flopping all around).
This may sound silly, but is sometimes easier said than done...avoid dropping the bow on its tip. This common event can cause much grief and expense to fix.
Another thing not to do is don't whack things with the stick. Again, it feels silly to write it, but I have seen and heard of really nice bows being broken because the grain and the impact happened to add up the wrong way. Bows tend to not be the same after breakage.
Also, on my short list of common blunders, don't leave the bow hanging out of a quiver, etc., when the bass is resting, where it can get walked into, tripped over, etc. around humans (on stage, family members, large pets, etc.). Another sad and common way to ruin a good time.
Here's another little one. Don't touch the bow hair with your hands. Finger oil plus rosin is not good for grabbing the strings. Its a pain to fix bow hair that gets all greasy from palm or finger oil.If you are big-handed, don't worry about your finger tips touching the hair at the frog; you don't play on that part of the hair anyway. I am talking more about general handling, etc.
Plus, touching the hair makes your hands sticky; not good for the rest of your playing.
Finally (this is less about bow maintenance and more about playing), but segregate where you play pizz and arco on your string length as much as possible (bow lower, toward the bridge, pizz higher, toward the nut).
This keeps hand oil out of the "traction zone" where it will mess up your arco. Also keeps rosin out of the rest of your playing. Of course, high TP playing or really agressive, end of board pizzing sort of muddies this water, but its a simple thing to generally observe.
Wait, i almost forgot. You might do well to get a teacher who can show you how to use the bow. They will probably tell you most of what we just wrote...
