Introduction
- The company and the instructor
- The importance of education and ongoing advice and support for success
- Student introductions, background and motivations
- The growing local and global interest in practical beekeeping
What are the rules?
The Bees
- Species of bees
- Honey bee anatomy
- Types of European honey bee and their roles
- Queens
- Workers
- Drones
- Winter bees
Equipment for Your First Year - Pros and Cons
- Langstroth
- Top Bar
- Flow Hive
- Nuc box
Protective Equipment - Safety and Sanitation
- Bee suits with gloves
- Smoker
- Hive tool
- Bee brush
- Entrance reducers
- Honey extraction equipment
Preparation and Management
- Education and research
- Decide where your hive(s) will be situated, and what are the best chances of success
- Order supplies
- Ordering of bees: Nucs vs packages
- Assembling equipment
Spring Preparation and Management
- How to gauge the onset of spring
- Hive location
- Getting the hive(s) set up and level
- Bee arrival
- Installing packages
- Installing nucs
- Entrances and reducers
- Dealing with sudden cold spells
- Spring feeding - when, why and how
- Spring health management - when, why and how
- IPM Integrated Pest Management
- First and subsequent hive checks - when and how
Hive Checks - Practical Guide
- Approaching the hive
- Preparing (PPE, clothing colors, scents)
- Is there a good/better/best method/time way?
- Recommended demeanour
- Applying smoke: How much and what does it do for you and the bees
- Slow and smooth comforts the bees
- Inspecting brood nest, eggs, presence of queen, other indicators of healthy development
- Determining need for hive expansion
Diagnosing Potential Conditions in Your Hive
- Reasons for a queenless colony
- Lifespan of a queen
- Spotty brood pattern
- Presence of queen cups and cells - swarm, supercedure, or emergency situation
- Presence of mites
- Bee disease
- Multiple eggs in each cell
- Number of bees
- Deformities
- Weak hive - how to amalgamate
- Importance and timing of regular checks
Keeping Thorough Records
- How often should I do a hive check?
- Why should I keep good records?
- Hive observations and solutions
- Prescriptions, treatments
- Marking contaminated/medicated boxes
Requeening
- How to requeen
- Importance of acclimatized genetics
Swarming
- Swarm season
- Can my first year bees swarm?
- Reasons for swarm
- Prevention strategies (can also be part of your IPM strategy)
- In Edmonton, call 311 to inform the City of the swarm or contact the Alberta Beekeepers' Association to send a beekeeper to remove the swarm at no cost
Summer Management
- How to gauge the onset of summer
- The queen’s mating flight
- The start of honey flow, development through the year
- Feeding decisions
- Honey supers to catch the flow - timing
- How to super a Langstroth hive
- Top bar hive expansion
- How much honey can be taken from the hive?
- Mediums or deeps? What do they weigh?
- Flow hive
- Checking the capped honey
- Moisture content
Extracting Honey
- Removing honey frames/supers
- Langstroth
- Uncapping
- Extracting
- Straining
- Option of honey comb
- Topbar
- Crushed comb
- Auto Extract
- Bottling/labeling requirements
- Selling raw/natural honey
- Raw natural versus organic honey
- Cleaning/storing frames and equipment
Fall/Winter Management
- How to gauge the onset of fall
- Hive checks: When and at what temp to stop
- Expulsion of the drones
- Contraction and backfilling of brood nest with honey
- Winter bees
- Tightening of the cluster
- Size of cluster
- Health and treatments
- Feeding
- Wrapping the hives when cold arrives
- Essential - keeping hive dry and ventilated
- What to expect expect next year
Honey Bee Pests and Diseases
- Implication of Health Canada prescription regulations as of December 1, 2018
- Provincial recommendations for management of honeybee pests in Alberta
- What to look for
- Avoiding used equipment and old comb
- Drift, old equipment
- Old queens
- Mites
- Varroa, Varroasis
- Tracheal mites
- Brood Diseases
- AFB
- EFB
- Chalk Brood
- Nosema
- Small hive beetle
- Wasps and mice
- Pesticide poisoning
- Importation rules and inspections; Alberta provincial inspections
- Organic treatments
- Commercial treatments
- IPM
IMPORTANT NOTE
The City of Edmonton expects you to follow up this course with hands-on experience at a working beeyard. Hivewold.ca’s Meet the Beekeeper evenings near Sherwood Park are an easy, low-cost way for you to meet this expectation.
Further Resources: Online and Printed
