Randalstown & District Beekeepers Association
RANDBKA.org
Located on the shores of
Lough Neagh
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Randalstown and District
Beekeepers Association
Introduction to Beekeeping aims to give those interested in taking up beekeeping the basic knowledge and skills to enable them to care for their honeybees.
Proficiency in Beekeeping is an Open College Network Northern Ireland (OCN NI) Level 3 endorsed and builds upon the knowledge gained from any introductory course successfully studied.
For further information and to register for a course, please visit CAFRE and enter ’Beekeeping’ in the search
The organisers of the now cancelled BBKA Convention 2020 are very pleased to have received videos of the lectures you would have seen at the Spring Convention from Professor Tom Seeley, a biologist at Cornell University. We hope you enjoy them!
Lecture 1: Bee Hunting. This presentation will show you a fun way to locate wild colonies of honey bees, using the tools and techniques of a bee hunter. It is a kind of treasure hunt, though these days the treasure is the discovery, not the honey in the bee tree. Sometimes, though, it will lead you to a beekeeper's hive, but that is fun, too!
Lecture 2: The Lives of Bees. This presentation will give you an overview of what is known about how honey bee colonies live in the wild, that is, when they are not living in a beekeeper's hive and are not subject to a beekeeper's manipulation. In short, it provides a look at the true natural history of Apis mellifera, at least for the colonies that live in the countryside around the small city of Ithaca, New York (USA).
Lecture 3: Darwinian Beekeeping. This presentation provides an introduction to a way of being a beekeeper who wants to let his or her colonies live as naturally as possible. This is an approach to beekeeping that is only relevant for a small-scale beekeeper, one who has just a few hives, and for a beekeeper who does not seek to get a lot of honey from his or her bees. It is appropriate for somebody who wants to relate to the bees more as a beewatcher than as a beekeeper.
These videos are available on the BBKA Website.
https://www.bbka.org.uk/spring-convention-videos
If you would like any further reading by Prof Seeley here is a list of the books he has published through Amazon Smile which gives BBKA a small percentage from the net purchase price:
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Thomas-D-Seeley/e/B001HPUI6S?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1584969354&sr=8-1
