Beekeeping Class Schedule

Register For A In Person BeeKeeping Class

Rays offers in-person teaching for new beekeepers in January and February. These classes are four hours long and your registration includes access to the full beginner’s beekeeping video course! So you get practical live teaching to get you started, have your questions answered, and see live demonstrations. Then, you can complete your education by diving into the full video course at no extra charge.

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.