There is nothing natural about beekeeping! Surely this is not what you expected to hear. Take a minute and think about it. There is nothing MORE natural than a feral (wild) honeybee colony. The honeybees live in an empty cavity, such as a hollow tree, where THEY determine how the comb is oriented, how much ventilation, and where brood is raised and honey is stored. In contrast, WE as beekeepers try to control these things in our hives. But perhaps more importantly, and most overlooked, is the fact that a feral colony is never opened up. It never has it’s temperature quickly changed, it’s scent drastically diluted, and is never exposed to sunlight. All things that happen every time we open our hives.
So is beekeeping a bad thing? Absolutely not. Life for a feral colony is no bed of roses.
“Natural” – “Organic” – “Sustainable” – “Biodynamic” Beekeeping Don’t be sucked into today’s latest buzz words for “Healthy Living”. Although they start as good intentions, they usually turn out to mean you will be spending more money than you need to. We now live in a hormone induced, drug laced, GMO society. But beekeepers have been successfully keeping bees in a symbiotic manner for centuries. Long before these scientific wonders and without touting themselves as “treatment-free”, “natural”, or “organic”.
I will be leading a multi-session intro to beekeeping seminar at the Olive Free Library in West Shokan, NY. View
Olive Free Library on a map.
This is a FREE seminar which will discuss the pros and cons of treatment & treatment-free beekeeping so that YOU can draw your own comfort line. You should obtain as much information as you can BEFORE you invest any of your hard earned money. There is no right or wrong way to keep bees, it is personal preference. My goal is not to teach you what you should do, but give you the information needed to decide how YOU want to keep bees. No knowledge of beekeeping is necessary.
If there is interest, we will schedule additional group session(s) through the winter to focus on building and preparing equipment for those who plan to start keeping bees next spring.
Session 1: Saturday, January 4, 2014 12PM – 4PM – Overview of the HoneybeeNative pollinators
Honeybee caste and races
Bee stings / Apitherapy
Where to get bees
Bees and neighbors
Beneficial plants
Natural/Organic beekeeping
Session 2: Saturday, January 18, 2014 12PM – 4PM – Equipment and Bee CareProtective gear
Hive tools
Hive types – Framed and Top Bar
Predators and pests
Hive placement
Installing bees
Signs of a healthy hive
Diseases
Products from the hive
Winter prep
The format will be pretty informal. There will be presentations and plenty of hands on demonstrations. Open discussion and questions are highly encouraged. Please sign up in person at the library, or online below, so that we can get a feel for how many folks to prepare for and be able to contact you if things change.
The seminar will be led by Rob Overton, 30+ year beekeeper deeply involved in the beekeeping community.
- Administrator at Beemaster’s International Beekeeping Forum which is the largest forum on the internet geared towards backyard and hobbyist beekeepers.
- Frequent beekeeping contributor and guest at the Wildlife Pro Network.
- Creator of the Bushkill Bee Vac, which revolutionized the use of bee vacs for live honeybee removals, and is preferred by professionals across the US.
For more info and to register visit ->
http://bushkillfarms.com/intro-to-beekeeping/
