Bee School

Bristol County Bee School

Bee school will start Feb. 16th

 For additional info  email Bee School

The cost is $45 and it 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.  This is the course you should take if you are even thinking about keeping bees, or if you have tried it and want to know more about it.  

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.

Around April, 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.  

Other beekeepers (some from this area) can  supply bees in nucs.  If you want to join us in getting some bees to keep, bee school would be a great idea.

Here is the Beginning Beekeeping Course Syllabus for 2010.  Use this syllabus as a guide.  Actual subjects may be presented in a different order.  In the event of a “weather condition” it is incumbent upon the students to contact the Bee School leader to verify if class will be held.  If we’re really good we’ll have the information on the web page, but the primary route is a phone call.  The class will be made up on the dates listed.

The Bee School will start on February 16, 2010.   It runs for 6 Tuesdays, from 7 to 9 p.m., and will finish April 6th, which includes 2 dates for cancellation due to a weather event.  All classes will be at the Bristol County Agricultural High School in Room 108.

PLEASE NOTE:
For the first meeting ONLY, i.e. February 16th, please arrive around 6:30.  This will allow time for registration and handouts and more time for Class Bee Talk.  For subsequent meetings arriving for 7 p.m. will work out fine.

 

Bristol County Beekeepers’ Association

Beginners’ Beekeeping Course

  

Text: Beekeeping Basics, College of Agricultural Sciences Cooperative Ext., Penn State

Week 1: February 16, 2010

Introduction to Beekeeping

Speakers: Bob Desrosiers, instructor, Gregory Boyd, president, Bristol County Beekeepers’ Association and Everett Zurlinden, director, Bristol County Beekeepers’ Association Bee School

• About this classroom
• Course overview/the “big picture”
• Introduction to Bristol County Beekeepers’ Association
  • Integrated beekeeping education
  • Mentors
  • Workshops
• Resource list (web, bibliography, organizations, equipment suppliers, listservs)
• Basic equipment (smoker, hive tool, protective equipment, etc.)
• Basic hive parts (bottom boards, hive body, supers, frames, inner cover, lid)
• Making the decision to be a beekeeper: Time, cost, bee stings, when to order bees

Reminder: Attend Feb 24 meeting and hear presentation by Everett Zurlinden, “Why we feed the bees.”

Reading required for this session:  Text, pp 7-12, Appendix D & E, Handout – Bristol County recommended equipment

Week 2: February 23, 2010

Biology and Life Cycle of the Honey Bee

Speaker:  Everett Zurlinden

• 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 2-6

Week 3:  March 2, 2010

Starting a New Hive

Speaker: Chris Jerome, Representatives of suppliers of bees & equipment

• 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:  Text, pp 13-23

Week 4:  March 9, 2010

Equipment and Assembly

Speaker: Fred Sterner

• 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, review Text pp 7-12

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 5:  March 16, 2010

Colony Management

Speaker: Joe Tardiff

• 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:  Text, pp 25-39

Reminder: Attend March 24 meeting and hear “Nectar Sources” presentation by Don Adams

Week 6: March 23, 2010

Diseases, Pests & Common Threats

Speaker: Wayne Andrews

• 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)

Reminder: Attend March 31 meeting and hear “Nectar Sources” presentation by Don Adams
                              June 30 workshop & meeting: “Extracting Honey”

Reading required for this session: Text pp 41-61, and with time available: pp 62-72

Week 7:  March 30, 2010 Snow Makeup Date Speaker: TBA Topics: TBA

Week 8:  April 6, 2010 Snow Makeup Date Speaker: TBA Topics: TBA