First Lessons in Beekeeping

A couple of weekends ago I attended a beekeeping course put on by the Honeybee Centre in Langley. When we acquired the farm in Pemberton I was excited to think that we could have beehives for pollination, and a little honey on the side for use in our mylks.

In many parts of the world, populations of bees have been decimated as a result of changing agricultural practices, the use of pesticides and widespread land clearing and the consequent elimination of nesting sites.

Basic beekeeping turns out to be not that ‘basic’. There is a lot to know about keeping the colony going through the Winter, keeping bee hives pest free naturally, and ensuring a steady flow of honey. My mind was full after the two day course and I can’t wait for the Spring seminars to get out in the field.

I’ve started looking for my supplies, joined a Bee Club and I’m reaching out to others in the area with hives. I’ll send out updates when we start setting up and sharing the successes and the failures. I would recommend watching the documentary “More than Honey” if you are interested in learning about these beautiful, hardworking insects.

One thing I learned that I learned is that it takes 22,700 bees to make a single jar of honey! At it’s most productive a single colony of bees can produce 800kg of honey. The bees use this honey as fuel too, so at any given time there is close to 10-20kg of honey in the hive. We have some bear fences to put up at the farm or our hives won’t last long…the bears the pass through the property will harvest it before we can if we’re not careful!

Between starting up the farm and beehives we should have a great many stories…

Christina

For information about the beekeeping course:

Honeybee Centre
Honeybeecentre.com
604-575-2337