The Intermediate Beekeeping Seminars are geared towards the continued education of experienced beekeepers. Beekeepers who are entering their 2nd season will also benefit from attending.
The next several seminars in 2011 will continue to focus on making nucs and sustainable apiary management practices in support of our club efforts to become more sustainable and ultimately be able to produce our own bees and queens.
The next seminar will likely be scheduled in early Feb. This particular one will be most appropriate for beekeepers entering their 2nd season or those who have never made a nuc (nucleus hive) before. Pat and Jim Haskell of BANV will lead us in Nuc Making Step by Step.
Then in early April (date TBD), Mike Palmer of French Hill Apiaries, St. Albans, VT will return to Virginia and talk about A Sustainable Plan for the Apiary which will include much discussion of overwintered nucs.
RSVP's to PWRBeekeepers@gmail.com are strongly encouraged for these events due to space limitations.
We hope to continue to offer intermediate and advanced seminars in the alternative months to our regular club meetings. In order to do this, we will need more of YOU the membership to help run our regular beekeeping club meetings, come up with ideas for programs, etc. We need to to do two things:
1) keep reaching out to and teaching new beekeepers via our introduction class and our regular club meetings, and
2) continue to increase the education of existing beekeepers, in part through the advanced beekeeping seminars.
We need to continue to do both of these things and we hope that more people will respond with ideas for programs AND step up to help put them together. All ideas welcome. Please contact one of the PWRBA club officers to discuss any ideas you have.
A SAMPLE OF PAST INTERMEDIATE SEMINARS (for complete listing see HISTORY)
This summer we had a very successful seminar on Extracting Honey. Pat and Jim Haskell presented a wonderful program on extracting honey. Pat is an EAS Master Beekeeper and is responsible for pulling together the Northern Virginia Teaching Consortium. Together with Jim, they run a whole bunch of hives in Northern Virginia and in Page County, VA. Pat has been instrumental in helping to organize the Prince William Beekeepers Association and remains a good friend and supporter of our club. June 2010
We also had another successful seminar in June 2010 on Making Overwintered Nucs with Karla Eisen, John Strecker and friends. We were delighted to have guests from Howard County Beekeepers, a few folks from West Virginia, and Nevin Rank of Honey Rustlin Farms attend. Note that Nevin also makes some of the custom woodenware discussed. Find him here: http://www.honeyrustler.com/
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