Organic Beekeeping Course Practical

Bee hives were being introduced to the local agricultural college with the objective being that they are good environmental scensors. I am a little concerned for them having been told by the tutor that the college still uses the chemical that has been banned from France due to colony collapse mentioned in my previous beekeeping post. The tutors at the college are trying to get the powers that be to change to organic methods but they are encountering some resistance. It is through supporting courses such as this organic beekeeping course that may persuade them to change. Let's hope so.
The session started with a novel way of fitting the wax sheets into the frames using a 2 Euro section of wire attached to the car battery. This was then attached to the metal threads running through the wax which expanded as it was heated fitting it snuggly in place. Biodynamic beekeepers prefer to let the bees make their own wax rather than buy in foundation, which seems to make sense to me and what I would like to give them a chance to do
in the future as it seems a natural part of their process.



Here a practical solution for the lone beekeeper is being demonstrated as the Supers can get heavy. To be honest it seemed to be a bit too much hastle for my liking.

Here you can see frames being transfered from the nucleus (a small colony of bees divided this year) to a full sized hive.

This frame is loaded with honey stores - just the thing to get the bees through winter.

Here you can see a frame with brood on being held up to the sunlight. We were not fortunate enought to spot the queen despite several experienced beekeepers being with us. I had failed to spot my own a couple of days before so didn't feel such a novice.

One colony of bees happily marched up into their new hive which was probably an indication that they could sense that the queen was already in their. The other colonly had to be persuaded to get going with a little bit of smoke.

The course has been really useful to link up with other organic beekeepers some with many years of experience who have already invited me to go and visit their apiaries and use their extractors when I need to. I have learnt beekeeping vocabulary in Gallego and Spanish and more importantly I have learnt how crucial it is to go organic and give bees a chance to build up a natural resistance rather than bombard them with antibiotics and chemicals at the first sign of trouble.