Beginners Beekeeping Course

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 –

ason & 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: $280.00 per person.

Course times: By arrangement

*Children must be 10 years and over and accompanied by an adult.