Description
Great news. Our beekeeping workshops will be restarting soon. Keep an eye on our social media sites for more information.
This one-day beekeeping workshop covers more advanced beekeeping techniques.
The following topics are covered:
Rearing queen bees.
Our trainer, Glenn Locke has completed the Certificate III Rear Queen Bees and has been raising queens for several years. We can instruct you on rearing queen bees and take you right through the process of putting together cell starters, grafting, making up mating nucleus hives and assessing new queens. Classes can cover many different methods depending on your needs and resources. This class is best done on its own over a full day.
Spring management of bees.
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. Our trainer 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. Our trainer can take you through all the methods of moving beehives that ensure the safety of yourself and your bees.
Supplementary feeding.
Bees from time to time need to be fed pollen substitutes and sugar syrup. We can take you through the process of supplementary feeding detailing the pros and cons of each method.
Managing Small Hive Beetle
Small hive beetle has become widespread in the eastern parts of Australia since it was introduced around 2000. 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 $200.00 per person per day. Children must be 16 years and over and accompanied by an adult. Course times 9 am to 4 pm.
We require a 10% deposit prior to accepting your booking. This deposit is non-refundable.
Contact us about Beekeeper training – Advanced
Our beekeeping workshops are one on one mentoring
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 following 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, Mt. Coramba Apiculture 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. Travel is charged per km and varies according to the price of fuel. This service is limited to a 100km radius of Coffs Harbour.
We have a functioning flow hive on site.
FAQ
