Time spent beekeeping is much more rewarding than time spent writing about beekeeping.

My beeyards, have held most of my attention (as it should) for May and June. Larva and brood to admire, nucs to make, queen cells to move around, supers to lift off then back on – I’m not complaining and wouldn’t change a thing.

Adding to the beekeeping time spent in my own beeyards, is a new twist. I’m sponsoring a training out yard at a new site. The bee club I belong to kindly donated two hives and two packages to get this training yard up and running. These hives were assembled and packages installed in conjunction with this spring’s crop of new beekeepers – some 50+ people who took classes from the club, bought their hives, equipment and bees. They all need hands in the hive experience as no classroom training would be completed without it.

The goal of this yard is to provide a central location were new and experienced beekeepers can meet on a defined schedule and exchange information, observations, experience and stories. As an added bonus, I got  a swarm call which I gladly captured and installed in the training yard. This  moved the hive count up to three and providing a learning experience on how fast a swarm cam fill up two five frame supers. We moved the swarm into an eight frame hive and it continues to expand.

Next on the list and new to me was a swarm catch box that became home to a second swarm. This one is also doing reasonably well but will likely stay in the current five frame hive.

The goal of this yard is simply to teach beekeeping and to get the now four hives through the winter. We shall see how that goes.