two-hour taster course beekeeping taster

location: Gateshead

This course is run by Mark and Kym Pritchard, who between them have been keeping bees since 1979, have a masters in education and a postgrad degree in environmental studies, have taught beekeeping at Cumbria University adult education classes, give advice to farmers on making their land more bee friendly, and have 20 hives at the moment.

On your Beekeeping Course Taster Session you will learn about beekeeping. You will: 

• look inside a colony (weather permitting) 
• handle the bees and frames
• use smokers and the equipment necessary for day to day beekeeping
• learn about the importance of beekeeping
• learn about the life cycle of queens, workers, drones, and their division of labour
• look at and discuss the inside of a modern hive
• learn about pollination, nectar and honey, and:
• wax, propolis and royal jelly
• the life cycle of a hive
• swarming and swarm control
• diseases and hive management

Clearly, in 2 hours we can only touch on these subjects. This is too much to cover in depth in 2 hours. It's intended to give you an insight as to whether beekeeping is for you or not.

dates: see 'book online' below

more on beekeeping