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Beekeeping Classes and Tours

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 Sign up for our newsletter to be informed of our next events.  Rays offers in-person beekeeping classes in the Winter and spring, and farm tours during the spring and summer.

What "In Person" Classes Do You Offer?

Learn Beekeeping with Ray: Beginners’ Course

Offered In January and February.

4 hours of Essentials to get you started in beekeeping.   It’s a “Beginners Beekeeping School” on Saturday morning.  And it includes access to my full video course to fill in the gaps I can not get to in 4 hours.   

Some topics may include: 

  • The Why of Beekeeping 
  • Bee Keeping Lingo
  • Myths and Truths
  • Must Know Bee Biology / Lifecycle
  • Identifying Cells on a Frame
  • Costs of beekeeping
  • Time investment in beekeeping
  • How many hives do I start with?
  • Anatomy of a Hive / Types of hives
  • Tools & Equipment needed to start 
  • Dealing with Stings
  • Buying Bees – packages vs nucs 
  • Setting up your hives
  • Frames: Waxing &  Drawing out the foundation
  • How to Install Bees 
  • How to do Hive Inspections 
  • Feeding Your Bees
  • Wax moths, hive beetles
  • Mite Testing 
  • Mite Treatment Methods

Intermediate Beekeeping

Offered In May

4 hours of skills to take your beekeeping to the next level.    Recommended for beekeeping who have had a hive for a min of 6 months or longer. 

  • How to Extract Honey
  • Queens: Finding, Marking
  • Avoiding swarms – Inducing swarms.
  • Catching swarms – Making Traps
  • Demaree Method of swarm prevention, honey production
  • Ways to Split A Hives
  • Using 5 Frame vs 2 frame nucs
  • Requeening, when and why
  • Introduction to Queen Rearing with and without grafting
  • Queen Castles and Mating.
  • Hands on practice marking a bee and grafting
  • Includes a Video Version of the Class for your future reference. 

Bee Handling Class

Offered In March

  • Offered in person only
  • Demonstrations and Hands on learning
  • How to inspect a hive
  • How to light a smoker
  • How to find a queen
  • Demonstration on testing for mites. 
  • Reading a frame
  • Tools of the trade explained.
  • Bee Suit is required as you will have the chance to handle the bees.  
  • Held in April and June. 

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In Person Classes Don't Meet Your Schedule?

See Rays NEW Video Bee Course