*If Bristol Aggie is closed due to bad weather, there will be no bee school that night! Notice will also be posted on this website, facebook page or email!
Bristol County Bee School 2013 Class Schedule:
Feb. 5th, Feb. 12th, Feb. 19th, Feb. 26th (General Membership Monthly Meeting), March 5th, March 12th, March 19th, March 26th (General Membership Monthly Meeting). Allow 2 additional weeks in case of bad weather!
For additional info email Bee School
This is the course you should take if you are thinking about keeping bees, or if you have tried it and want to know more about it!
The cost is $45 which includes a textbook, handouts and a 1-year membership to Bristol County Beekeepers Association. Please note that the 1-year membership is for an individual, a couple or a family, depending on how you want to sign up. Each “entity” is entitled to one vote.
Subjects will include the biology of honeybees, how to acquire your first bees, buying or building a beehive, plants for the bees, diseases and how to treat them, queens, extracting and bottling honey. A review of what to do for all four seasons will give you an idea of what is involved. There will be lots of time for questions and answers, and a chance to talk to people that have just started as well as those veterans with 100 hives that can talk about tons of honey.
When April rolls around, “packages” (boxes containing three pounds of bees and one queen) will arrive in this area from Georgia. If you have never weighed a bee, that amounts to about 10,000 bees! New (and old) beekeepers will stop by and claim their new bees. A little later in the spring, other beekeepers (some local) can supply bees in nucs, which are small colonies of bees in a 5 frame hive box. If you want to join us in getting some bees to keep, bee school would be a great idea.
The Bee School will start on February 5th, 2013. There are 6 classes on Tuesdays, from 7 to 9 p.m. with a general membership monthly meeting halfway through the course. The classes will end on March 19th. If there is bad weather and Bristol Aggie closes, Bee School will be pushed back a week. All classes will usually be at the Bristol County Agricultural High School library…Unless otherwise noted!
PLEASE NOTE:
For the first meeting ONLY (February 5th), please arrive around 6:30pm. This will allow time for registration and handouts and more time for Class Bee Talk. All subsequent meetings begin at 7:00 pm sharp.
For the first meeting ONLY (February 5th), please arrive around 6:30pm. This will allow time for registration and handouts and more time for Class Bee Talk. All subsequent meetings begin at 7:00 pm sharp.
Here is the Beginning Beekeeping Course Syllabus for 2013. Use this syllabus as a guide. Actual subjects may be presented in a different order.
Bristol County Beekeepers’ Association
Beginners’ Beekeeping Course 2013
Text: First Lessons in Beekeeping, by Keith S. Delaplane
Week 1
Introduction to Beekeeping
- Integrated beekeeping education
- Mentors
- Workshops
Week 2
Starting a New Hive
- Site considerations: location, neighbors, ordinances
- Getting your own: package bees, nucs, swarms, buying an existing colony or split
- Installing a nuc
- Installing packaged bees
- Feeding & caring for the bees (more to be covered in Hive Management)
- Sources
Reading required for this session: TBA
Week 3
Biology and Life Cycle of the Honey Bee
- Biology of the honey bee
- Individual caste life cycles, duties
- Hive life cycle (intro to what bees do in each season)
- Communication: pheromones, dancing
- Brief intro to races
- Colony Collapse Disorder
Reading required for this session: Text, pp 1 – 25
Week 4
Colony Management
- Late winter/early spring
- Honey flow build-up; post honey flow
- Honey plants: nectar and pollen sources
- Summer management
- Fall and winter management
Reading required for this session: TBA
Week 5
Equipment and Assembly
Review of Bristol Bee recommended hive parts (bottom boards, hive body, supers, frames, inner cover, outer cover)
- Other equipment (queen excluders, feeders, hive straps, moving frame, staples)
- Plans for making own hive bodies and supers
- Frame assembly demo
Reading required for this session: Supplier catalogs, Handouts: Plans from http://www.beesource.com/plans/index.htm, textbook TBA
Reminder: Next week’s session will be critical to your success as a beekeeper. Please be sure to complete the reading assignment prior to attending the class!
Week 6
Diseases, Pests & Common Threats
- Diseases: AFB, EFB, chalkbrood, sacbrood and nosema
- Pests: varroa mites, tracheal mites, SHB
- IPM strategies: resistant breeds, screened bottom boards, proper maintenance, checking population, proper use of pesticides, mechanical controls
- Extraction and processing (time available)
- Marketing products from the hive (time available)
Reading required for this session: TBA
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