I have just finished teaching 2 beekeeping night classes for 6 weeks at a local High School with the last lesson a visit to my hive - please excuse the state of my back yard, I have no time for gardening at the moment !!
Some of the students watching me take the top off the hive, as there are alot of bees in the hive at the moment and quite afew people don`t have their protective gear yet, I didn`t take the top board completely off. As it was, the bees were very well behaved and no one got stung !! I had another 7 or so people standing on the other side of me, all very interested and keen to keep bees.
It was the first time I had opened the hive for acouple of months and they have made quite alot of comb, especially where there were no frames. I don`t mind as it is easy enough to strain the honey out, I will most probably leave it there for the bees to use and put a honey super on top fairly soon. If this hive does not swarm I may have a go at splitting it, never done that before it can`t be that hard ??
I think the comb is beautiful, such a work of art and when they make it naturally it just seems to glow.I don`t wear gloves as I find them to bulky and I end up squashing bees, this way, I go very carefully and usually don`t get many stings, none yesterday which was good for the students to see.
I have been asked to teach the course again next term which is in about 3 weeks, heres` hoping we get the numbers again, it was so popular I ended up doing 2 classes. The verbal feed back has been very encouraging, I seem to have taught them what they needed to know and instilled confidence enough to at least think seriously about keeping bees with many actually doing it - just what I intended - more beekeepers in our world !
3 comments:
Hi Ngaio - Isn't that encouraging? The beginners' course last winter had around 20 attendees altogether. All different ages and backgrounds. There was terrific friendliness and "buzz" (sorry!). Good craic, as we say in these parts. Around 5 or 6 of us seem to have proceeded with bees, so 25% isn't bad.
Good for you! My grandfather instilled a love of gardening and beekeeping in me. I feel a responsibility as a beekeeper to spread the word to as many as possible.
I'm very curious what your winter temperatures are. Does it get cold? I'm also very interested in top-bar hives. Nobody in this area is familiar with this method so I'll turn to reading and blogs such as yours for information. Thanks.
The classes were great - even if I did miss the last one - I am looking forward to Saturday in Raglan instead :) And yes, I have found you here - what a lovely blog.
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