Kalamazoo Bee Club collaborated with Kalamazoo Valley Community College to organize a series of Beekeeping Master Classes!
This non-credit offering takes place in the evening at KVCC’s Food Innovation Center in Kalamazoo. It’s open to anyone interested in furthering their beekeeping knowledge and is an excellent companion to the club’s Bee School that takes place each February. The course is currently divided into three sections:
Beekeeping 101
Spring 2018: please consult the KVCC website for dates & location
This course will provide fundamental knowledge about honey bees and apiary management for those interested in beekeeping. Participants will learn about:
- What basic beekeeping requires and how to set up an apiary
- Basic bee biology and what honey bees do
- Start-up and hive management
Weather permitting, there will be hands-on apiary lessons each session.
Beekeeping 102
Spring 2018: please consult the KVCC website for dates & location
This second course in the 3-part series will provide more in-depth knowledge of a honeybee colony. This class will focus on the biology of the honeybee and the colony. Anatomy and the difference between honeybees and other stinging insects will be introduced. The honeybee’s role in pollination and the impact on the rest of the natural world will be discussed. The bee nest and other components of the hive will be surveyed, providing a deeper understanding of the colony and its interrelated components.
Beekeeping 103 – please consult the KVCC website for dates & location
This last section of the 3-part series in beekeeping will continue to look at the life of a honeybee colony. This class will focus on the biology of the colony and how it relates to the environment. We will examine the sociality of the colony as well as the ways that honey bees communicate through their dancing behavior and pheromone production. We will look at how queen bees are raised and mated, along with how to manipulate this behavior to create more bee colonies. Finally, we will look at seasonal management and harvesting honey.
Registration costs $140 per participant. For more information and to register, click the program titles above.