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Beekeeping Courses and Workshops for Beginners
Our beekeeping courses and workshops can be structured to suit your beekeeping experience level. Jason & Natasha, our experienced and qualified trainers, can deliver informal, one on one introductory beekeeping classes to people who have never handled bees.
They can also tailor more advanced topics for beekeepers who want to take that step further into beekeeping. Beekeeping training can be delivered to individuals, families and groups at a time that is convenient for you. We are based in Jimboomba, which is based at the southern end of Logan City Queensland.
Bee All Natural offers four types of beekeeping workshop experiences. All required PPE & tools will be provided (Triple layered bee suits, gloves, hive tools, smoker, bee brush), Our suits and gloves are hygienically washed and disinfected after every use.
Lunch and light refreshments are also provided, please advise of any allergies or food preferences at time of booking.
Beekeeping workshop – Bee a Beekeeper for a Day
This one-day beekeeping courses covers the basics of being a beekeeper, Jason & Natasha will walk you through the intricacies of keeping bees and how they manage them using their ethical and sustainable practices.
The following topics are covered:
Using a beekeepers smoker –
We will show you how to select the appropiate fuel to use in your smoker then demonstrate the best way to light a beekeeper’s most important tool.
Open and Reassemble a beehive –
Opening a live beehive can be daunting without some necessary skills. Jason & Natasha will show you how to open the hive and explain how to judge the mood of the bees (yes bees actually have moods), at this point they will hand you you the tools to start inspecting the hive and getting an up close and personal experience with their bees.
Harvesting honey from our hive –
The availability of pure, fresh honey is one of the main reasons people want to learn to learn about beekeepng. It is essential that beekeepers can determine when honey is ripe enough to be hervested if we are fourtunate enough you will have the opportunity to remove a couple of frames of honey from the hive and transferring them for extraction. During this Jason & Natasha will explain the importance of practising sustainable and ethical beekeeping (the backbone of our business).
Managing honey bee pests and diseases –
Jason and Natasha will explain the battles that the humble honey bee faces and how it is crucial that beekeepers carry out thorough brood inspections and recognise the signs of disease such as American Foulbrood (AFB), European Foulbrood (EFB), Chalkbrood as well as how to manage Small Hive Beetle (SBH).
Extracting honey –
The process of getting honey from your frames into a jar is relatively simple process. You will have hands on experiences on how to uncap drames and extract honey quickly with minimum equipment.
*Due to drought and weather condictions we cannot guarantee that the enough honey to spare for harvest and extraction to take place. While this is unlikely to occur we will only take honey if the bees can afford to share it with us.
Adults: $1250.00 per person per day
Children under 12: $65.00 per person per day
For family bookings please contact us for group discount price.
*Children must be 7 years and over and accompanied by an adult.
Beekeeping Workshop – An Introduction to Beekeeping
Have you ever considered what it takes to become a beekeeper? Are you or your family thinking about purchasing a beehive wondering if you can do a beekeeping course? The beekeeper for a day taster is a basic beekeeping course for people who have bever handeled live bees. Tag along with an experienced beekeeper and ask anything you like before you take the plunge and buy beekeeping tools and equipment.
The following topics are covered:
Safety – personal protective equipment and bee stings.
Legislation – what you need to do about complying with beekeeping bio-security requirements.
Beekeeping tools and equipment – smokers, hive tools, beehive parts, Flowhives. Everything you will need and where to get it.
Hands on experience – open a beehive and handle live bees. Find the queen and observe the life cycle of honeybees.
Flowhive – Learn how a flow hive works as well as how to maintain your bees and inspect for disease and pests
Cost: $125.00 per person.
Course times: 10 am to 12.30 pm or 1 pm to 3.30 pm.
*Children must be 7 years and over and accompanied by an adult.
Beekeeping Course – Beginners
This one-day beekeeping course covers the basics of how to get started in beekeeping and is closely aligned with the core elements of the nationally recognised Certificate III Beekeeping.
The following topics are covered:
Using a beekeeper’s smoker – The ability to effectively use a smoker is one of the most critical skills in the beekeeper’s toolkit. We will show you how to select the appropriate fuel to use in your smoker then demonstrate the best way to light a beekeeper’s smoker in a way that results in a flow of steady, dense, cool smoke. Jason & Natasha will pass on their secrets to applying smoke so that your bees remain calm and workable.
Open and reassemble a beehive – Opening a live beehive can be daunting without some necessary skills. Jason & Natasha will take you through the process of assessing weather conditions, applying smoke, and opening the hive. Emphasis is placed on demonstrating how to disassemble the hive and lift frames out correctly using your hive tool.
We can show you the skills that will ensure the inspection process is safe for you and less stressful for your bees. Our style of ethical and sustainable beekeeping will help you to avoid bee stings (we cannot guarantee you will not be stung.)
We focus on teaching the skills to recognise good and undesirable bee behaviour and what you can do as a beekeeper to minimise disturbance to the hive. By following our methods, you can learn to work your bees confidently.
Manipulating brood combs & Performing Biosecurity Checks – Beekeepers manage honeybee brood combs for many reasons. During spring frames of brood are removed and placed above the queen excluder to make space in the brood box for the queen to lay. Brood combs are cycled out every year to reduce the incidence of disease. Brood can be removed from strong hives and placed into weaker hives to even them up. We can take you through various scenarios in our production and queen raising colonies.
Managing honeybee pests and diseases – Jason & Natasha can demonstrate how a healthy beehive looks. It is crucial that new beekeepers can carry out thorough brood inspections and recognise signs of disease such as American Foulbrood (AFB), European Foulbrood (EFB), Chalkbrood as well as how to manage small hive beetle (SHB).
Selecting and establishing an apiary site & Local Council Requirements –The success of your hives can depend a lot on where they are situated. Numerous factors come into play, particularly in an urban beekeeping situation. Jason & Natasha can discuss and demonstrate good hive locations with emphasis placed on the aspect, water availability and adequate flora. Jason & Natasha will also outline what your obligations are under the local laws as well as state government guidance notes.
Harvesting Honey from your hive – The availability of pure, fresh honey is one of the main reasons people want to learn about beekeeping. It is essential that beekeepers can determine when honey is ripe enough to be harvested. We can demonstrate popular methods of removing your honey crop from the hive and transferring them for extraction. During this session Jason & Natasha will explain the importance of practising sustainable and ethical beekeeping (the backbone of our business.)
Extracting honey – The process of getting honey from your frames into a jar is a relatively simple process. You will have hands on experiences on how to uncap frames and extract honey quickly and just with a minimum of equipment.
Requeening your beehive – Requeening of hives should be carried out on a regular basis to ensure that you maintain docile, productive bees. Our instructor will show you the signs that you should look for to indicate that your queen may be absent or failing. We will demonstrate how to correctly place a queen cage into a hive to maximise acceptance of the new queen.
Cost: $250.00 per person per day
Course time: 10 am – 3 pm
*Children must be 10 years and over accompanied by an adult
Beekeeping Course – Advanced
This one-day beekeeping workshop covers more advanced beekeeping techniques.
The following topics are covered:
Spring is a crucial time for a beekeeper. The success of your hive throughout the year can depend a lot on spring management of your beehives. Jason & Natasha can demonstrate how to handle a rapidly expanding colony in the spring to minimise swarming and maximise production.
Splitting hives
Splitting beehives is a low-cost way of expanding your apiary. Let us guide you through the process and show you the tricks around splitting hives to maximise your success.
All methods covered including:
- Walk away splits,
- Splits using queen cells and,
- Splits using mated queens.
Merging hives
The merging or joining of beehives hives is a common practice. The resources from poorly performing hives can be merged with better hives to create one good colony. As always with beekeeping, there are several ways of doing the same thing, and we can demonstrate a few options.
Moving hives
Beekeepers from time to time move hives from one place to another. Beehives can be moved a few metres or hundreds of kilometres. The process of moving hives is sometimes poorly understood, and there is a lot of conflicting information about it on social media sites. Jason & Natasha can take you through all the methods of moving beehives that ensure the safety of yourself and your bees.
Managing Small Hive Beetle
Small hive beetle has become widespread in the eastern parts of Australia since it was introduced around 2002. Some methods work well, and others don’t. We can demonstrate the techniques that we have found to be successful and show you how to implement them.
Cost: $250.00 per person per day
Course time: 10 am – 3 pm
*Children must be 10 years and over and accompanied by an adult
Mentoring
Once you have taken the plunge and own your backyard bees, you may need a little help from time to time. Our beekeeper can come to your apiary to assist you with anything that you need to know about beekeeping.
We can help you with the folllowing issues:
Identification of brood disease and assistance with honeybee pests: we can assist you to identify or rule out brood disease in your beehives and help you with any remedial action that may be necessary.
Aggressive hives: we can assist you to identify the causes of aggression in your colonies and work out solutions for more enjoyable beekeeping.
Swarming and Spring Management: We can help you to manage the spring buildup in your hives to reduce the incidence of swarming.
In fact, Jason & Natasha can assist you with any of those “Should I be worried moments”.
Cost: $50.00 per hour minimum then $25.00 per half hour increments.
*This includes travel time.
For all education bookings we do require a 10% deposit which is refundable providing cancellation is received at least 7 days prior to course start date.
