Beekeeping Classes

Posted on August 8, 2008 by Joseph

Once you’ve mastered the art of chicken keeping-then what?

Well, Bpaul says in his Portland based blog, that he believes “Portland’s next urban self sufficiency/food production movement is going to be bees.” And as an avid supporter of the local food movement, I’m also intrigued by a move toward urban self sufficiency!

Photo: TW Collins | Bee-hind the times…

It appears I am not alone in my excitement, either. Just this week I have responded to several inquiries from TeachStreeters asking about local classes. So I thought I’d share some on-line resources on the subject, as well as some great bee keeping classes available on TeachStreet.

History of Bees, Honey, and Hives

Beekeeping was traditionally practiced for the bees’ honey harvest, but in more recent years, hive products like pollen, royal jelly, and propolis have been used for nutritional and medicinal purposes as well. Beeswax has also seen a resurgence in popularity for its role in making candles, cosmetics, wood polish, and encaustics. Who knew?

Langstroth Hives

I also discovered there are a number of different hives, but it seems like the most commonly used one in the US is the Langstroth hive. The Langstroth was the first successful top-opened hive with movable frames, and other designs of hive have been based on it.

Top-Bar Hives

Another hive design growing in popularity is the Top-Bar hive. This hive is well suited to urban backyard bees since it’s considered a chemical free, small-scale form of beekeeping using simple equipment that almost any bee enthusiast can assemble at home.

There are many variations of the Top Bar hive, but all have the essential guiding principle of simple construction and management since there is no need for any other equipment or storage space, other than that provided within the hive itself. I know anything that’s low maintenance and simple to construct is definitely up my alley!

Photo: Antonio Machado | Macro Bee

When can you harvest the honey?
In the Northern Hemisphere, urban beekeepers may harvest honey from the hive between July and October, depending on honey flows in their area. Good management requires keeping the hive free of pests and disease, and ensuring the bee colony has room in the hive to expand. Success for the backyard beekeeper also depends on locating the apiary so that bees have a good nectar source and pollen source throughout the year.

Beekeeping Classes
If you’re interested in taking the next step toward becoming a backyard beekeeper, there are plenty of ways to learn beekeeping in the Seattle or Portland areas. Here are just a few classes to whet your appetite and be sure to check back often as new classes get added to TeachStreet everyday.

One of our favorite San Francisco beekeeping instructors is Cameo Wood (Her Majesty’s Secret Beekerper!) — check out a few of her San Francisco beekeeping classes.

Watching these industrious and gentle creatures establish their hive will surely be a relaxing and fascinating experience. Happy Honey Harvesting!

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  • http://www.teachstreet.com sam

    Un-bee-lievable, Ashley. This post is a real honey. The mentions you make of beekeeping classes in Portland and Seattle are sure to generate quite a buzz!

  • Annie

    Cool post, Ashley!

    It seems like bees have been in the news a lot lately – everything from an abandoned (but very full) beehive being left on the side of the highway, to the mysterious worldwide bee declines (global warming-related, perhaps?)

    It will be interesting to see if amateur beekeeping becomes a response to the uncertain future of food, much like organic home gardens and chicken keeping have become.

    Thanks for the post, definitely got me thinking…

  • http://www.beecontrolsacramento.com Paul

    I have one super now that has honey, but it is too cold to extract the honey. Got any ideas?

    Paul

    Bee Removal in Sacramento

  • http://honeybeekeeping.webs.com Brian Green

    Hello, I know this was posted over 2 years ago, but I was wondering how the honey bee population is holding up. My main concern is having too many bees in the city and not even pollen to go around

  • http://www.hmsbeekeeper.com Cameo Wood

    While I agree with you that habitat change (urbanization and
    agricultural intensification) has probably had the largest effect on
    the native bees. There is good evidence that honey bees have negative
    effects on native bees and that they share floral resources. The best
    work has been done on Bumble bees. Here in California, Diane Thomson
    (2004) experimentally introduced honeybees to areas with bumble bees
    and found that proximity to hives significantly reduced the foraging
    rates and reproductive success of the colonies. Similarly, she found a
    strong overlap between the food preferences of honeybees and
    bumblebees which peaked at the end of the season when floral resources
    were scarce. This corresponded to a negative relationship between
    honeybee and bumblebee abundance. In Europe, Walther-Hellwig et al.
    (2006) found that some bumblebees avoided areas of forage close to
    honeybee hives, others switched to foraging later in the day and were
    displaced from their preferred foodplant by honey bees. More
    recently, Goulson and Sparrow (2008) found that worker size was much
    smaller in four species of bumble bees in sites with honey bees and
    that decrease in size is likely to influence the success of the
    colony. And finally, in Israel, where honeybees are native, Shavit,
    Dafni and Ne'eman (2009), found that moving hives into an area
    increased the number of of honeybees visiting to a set of focal plants
    and decreased the number of visits by native solitary bees. They
    actually recommended that no hives be put in nature reserves in Israel
    to help protect the native bee fauna.

    My guess is that not all native bees experience the same degree of
    competition from honey bees and there may be no effect of honey bees
    on some species and indeed, there are papers that show little change
    in abundance of some native bees in the presence of honey bees.
    However, we don't really know enough to predict which species are
    going to be affected and it looks like bumble bees (one of the native
    species groups of most concern) are likely to be impacted. I think we
    want to be thoughtful about the impacts of our management choices.

    Goulson and Sparrow (2008) Evidence for competition between honeybees
    and bumblebees; effects on bumblebee worker size. Journal of Insect
    Conservation. 13:177-181.

    Shavit, Ofrit, Dafni, Amots, Ne'eman, Gidi (2009) Competition between
    honeybees, Apis mellifera, and native solitary bees in the
    Mediterranean region of Israel—Implications for conservation. Israel
    Journal of Plant Sciences 57(3)

    Thomson D (2004) Competitive interactions between the invasive
    european honeybee and native bumble bees. Ecology 85:458–470

    Thomson D (2006) Detecting the effects of introduced species: a case
    study of competition between Apis and Bombus. Oikos 114:407–418

    Walther-Hellwig K, Fokul G, Frankl R, Buechler R, Ekschmitt K, Wolters
    V (2006) Increased density of honeybee colonies affects foraging
    bumblebees. Apidologie 37:517–532