Bees

Yesterday Jeremy and I went to an all day beekeeping workshop. We met in a huge warehouse-like room with dozens of long folding tables set up for us to sit at. I did a rough estimate and there were probably 100+ people. Lots of interest!



The organizers handed out notebooks including all of their powerpoint slides for the day, articles about beekeeping, magazines and journals about beekeeping, catalogs for beekeeping, and a whole book about beekeeping.



Most of the day we sat while half a dozen different presenters shared about the history of bees and beekeeping, experiences of new beekeepers, bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to get started, bee diseases, and so forth.



In the afternoon they had several stations set up where everyone could handle all the beekeeping equipment and the bee boxes. At two stations we practiced assembling bee boxes and frames. It was a great stretch break and it was very helpful to see everything up close.


(pic from the American Bee Journal)

They had an incredible array of food for snacks as well. I have never seen such a huge variety of donuts, brownies, bars, cookies, and other sweet snacks. I rather enjoyed it. =) And lunch was provided as part of the workshop fee.

We connected with another beekeeper in Minneapolis and Jeremy asked a hundred questions of every beekeeper he could find. We've picked out a spot in our yard where bees might live and a friend of ours may have equipment we can use. But, it will probably be another year before we plunge into this adventure. We're just in the research and collecting stage for now!