On Saturday, the Dunbar Community Centre and the Dunbar Beekeepers organized an outreach workshop for neighbourhood beekeepers. We were honoured to have Julia Commons, Head Beekeeper from Hives for Humanity, present what she does for her bees in late summer and early fall to help with winter hive survival. This workshop gave beekeepers an opportunity to ask specific questions about their hives and also sent them home with a calendar of important month by month considerations.
We packed the room with 20 registered people for this event. We had several children who attended as young as seven years old and we had a number of beginner and intermediate beekeepers. Julia spoke about the lifecycle of the bees and how, we as beekeepers, can support and understand our hives in bee-friendly ways. She gave specifics of how to do mite rolls/treatment, what natural treatments can do to support the bee microflora, how to wrap hives, how to look for the amount of required space and finally, how to best care for our hives during the winter.
There were a number of great questions from the beekeepers specific to problems and concerns for their hives. We ended the workshop with a taste of local honey and pollen.
In addition to providing concrete information to the beekeepers, I arranged to help several individually with their hives. We also attracted new volunteer members for the Dunbar Beekeepers Club. As a club we provide a means to learn about beekeeping while working and maintaining the Dunbar Community Centre Apiary.
This was our first year doing these beekeeper specific workshops and they were a great success. Thank you.
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