BBKA Basic Assessment: I passed

I just found out that I passed the BBKA Basic Assessment which I took a few weeks ago.
I didn't find it too challenging, but it's good to hear that I got through the assessment nevertheless.

I'm keen to progress onto other formal education. There are two routes to follow, and I intend to follow both, as time allows. It's all described on the BBKA website education page. One route is on the practical side, with a general and then an advanced husbandry assessment. The other route is a set of 8 written exam modules. All the various components take a fair amount of work, have entry requirements, and also require a great deal more knowledge and experience than I currently have. Completion of all the components confers the title "Master Beekeeper" and it's no mean achievement. There's no way of telling whether my life will take me this way, but it's my intention to start with a couple of the exams and with the general husbandry assessment in the next few years.

Assessment later today

Hives record updated.

I undertook a full inspection of all 4 colonies this morning in last minute prep for my assessment for the Basic Beekeeping Certificate later this afternoon. The assessment is about an hour long, with 3 sections: the first a practical where I go through a hive and try to show the assessor I know what's what; the second a session where I make up a frame and talk about various aspects of beekeeping, focused on the natural history of the honey bee and beekeeping equipment; and the third an oral questioning on diseases and pests. I think it should be fairly straight forward, but I can never tell with such things. Let's see.


The colonies all look well. I'm hoping they can put a little more honey away before I take the supers off and whack on the Apiguard, which will be within the next 1-3 weeks.

Course for the BBKA Basic Certificate

Ealing Beekeepers Association, of which I am a member, started a 4 session course last night to prepare people for the first step on the ladder of BBKA exams: the Basic Assessment. I'm very keen to take the assessment. A requirement is to have kept bees for at least a year, so I'm just OK on that one. Andy and John (the usual suspects) took the course, and I'm so very grateful that they continue to give up their time on a voluntary basis to do this type of thing. They do a great job and must spend so much of their time on helping others in beekeeping. I suppose there are hundreds (thousands?) of selfless people who do the same across the UK (and across the world). Thank you! Anyhow, the course information seems to be a recap of things I mostly know, though it's good to have it all again and from a trusted source. I was also interested to know that part of the assessment will be to pick up 30 bees and put them into a matchbox. I'll need to practice this one (I have never done it before) and am wondering whether the bees in the box will be so good as to stay put as I put subsequent ones in . . .

We have lift off

I headed to the apiary today. 22celcius. Sunny intervals. The site looking lovely in its spring finery.

I'm trying to go for more of a defined format for today's inspection report so I can compare these reports better through time to show me how things are going.

Amidala Hive

Config: stand, mesh floor, deep brood box, queen excluder, brood box, super, glass crown board (see picture), roof.

Inspection: 2 frames of brood in the new deep brood box, eggs even laid on barely drawn comb, queen seen with her green dot nearly warn off. Old brood box (above queen excluder) one third full of honey, couple of drone brood cells. Super packed with honey - only 1-2 frames not full. No queen cells seen.


Comments: This queen's prolific laying continues. I just wish her entourage would drawn the comb fast enough for her to lay in, rather than forage and stuff the super with honey though this is nice to see. The old brood box which lies above the queen excluder is now empty of brood save a few small groups of nearly ready drone brood. Honey in this box was all around the edges of frames where it had been when the brood was present, the central cells being empty. In the new deep box things are looking good, except to see the eggs laid in barely ready cells. Steady on queenie! A single standard depth frame is still in the box which will make things messy over time so I'm moving it to this frame to the edge of the box: at each inspection I intend to move a frame from the front of the box to the back and shift the others up. I will do this rather than doing a brood-splitting type exercise since it seems gentler and I've shunted this colony around quite enough this year, thank you. Do I put a new super on? Yes I will do this at the next inspection. Why not do it now? Although the current upper super is full, I reason that the bees have lots of space to store honey in the old brood box and also lots of work to do drawing comb in the new brood box.

To do: respot queen - white this time so I can actually see it with my dodgy colour vision! Put on a new super during the next inspection.

Boudicca Hive

Config: stand, mesh floor, brood box, queen excluder, super, crown board, roof.

Inspection: Good amount of brood, honey and pollen in the brood box, though not much on outer few frames. Eggs, larva and queen all seen. A few patches of honey in the centre frames in the super, tended by a smallish group of bees. No queen cells seen.

Comments: Continues to be much weaker than Amidala Hive, but stronger than I had expected, and good to see the super starting to be put into use. I had considered introducing a few frames of brood from Amidala into Boudicca, but have decided against this for the time being to see how the latter does on its own. As ever, the bees in Boudicca were far more aggressive than their goodie-two-shoes neighbours, but I can't honestly say that even these bees presented much of a problem. Certainly a few were buzzing around me in an "oi what's going on here" fashion, but there were few flying into me and none followed me after the inspection.

To do: nothing.

Oh, and below is a random picture of my kids which I took on my recent volcano-extended trip to Spain. They're looking so happy since their cousin had just crept up behind me and was making faces.

Oh, and lastly some other news is that this morning I did my honey bee presentation to the 200 pupils at the school where my kids go. The children were ages 4-12. The talk went really well. I entered from the back of the audience with lit smoker amply applied as I moved through the crowd, all to Rimshy Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" blaring from the stereo (OK, OK, so it's not the right insect, but it's a fine piece of music and I don't know any honey bee tunes). I gave the same talk as I had previously at another school in January. This involved several videos, a presentation with lots of pictures, a hive (without bees) and a dead varroa ("monster mite") stuck to the middle of a sheet of paper and held up by one of the children. I was also asked loads of questions, and even managed to answer most of them! I'm looking forward to doing more talks to other schools, though have none currently lined up.

Bee talk to kids - a HIT

Today I did a talk on bees to kids in a school in Knightsbridge. The audience was about 50 kids, all between the  ages of 8 and 10. I'd spent some decent time preparing, and turned up wearing a bee suit (for the theatrical effect), have a brood body with "training" frames in (covered with pictures of bees and comb), and a presentation in powerpoint with all manner of pictures, graphics and video. I'd post the presentation here, but am afraid it was over 3Mb, so have decided not to. Anyhow, the presentation went down a storm, and I got lots of audience participation at all the right points and the boys and the teachers all pitched in with attentive faces and decent questions. The kids particularly seemed to appreciate when, after showing them a picture of "monsterous blood-sucking varroa," I pulled one of them out of the crowd to get a real varroa out of my bag and show it to the group: there was quite a laugh when the boy turned round to reveal a tiny red dot sticky-taped in the middle of a sheet of paper. I feel pretty gratified to have pulled it off since I was not sure what to expect, and I'm now planing to approach a few more schools in London to see if they are interested in me doing similar presentations. In fact, I'm wondering whether to purchase an observation hive nuc which although expensive will give me some good mileage at these types of things. I've already been asked by the London Wildlife Trust to host a stall on bees for a weekend festival they are holding in April, so perhaps the capital outlay on the observation hive might turn out to be well justified. And, to be honest, I'd just love to have one!

Bee teaching for kids

It's been a great bee experience week. During lunchtimes this week I've been up at Perivale Wood teaching kids about bees. It's a rather long story how it all happened: Wigmore Hall classical music people had decided their funding pitch to get music into schools needed spicing up so partnered with Ealing Beekeepers. Not an obvious match, for sure, but the result was great: five lots of 2 hour sessions with groups of up to 30 kids going round Perivale Woods and learning a little about bees. Parties split into 3 groups and I was stationed at the wild tree colony doing my talk to each of the groups in turn. Sure, I've only just started out as a beekeeper myself, but I think I managed to hold my own against most of the 10 year olds. I really enjoyed it, and not least because I got some good vibes from some excited kids, and also got some very positive direct feedback from the other beekeepers there: thanks guys, it was great to hear the feedback. And lovely too to see the Wood - a wonderful and very extensive nature reserve. I'm looking forward to the classical music concert at Wigmore Hall in a few weeks time.

Ealing Beekeepers and the course

I won't blog about the whole beekeeping course, but it's certainly worth a mention (in retrospect since I'm now writing this several months later).
I joined Ealing Beekeepers recently. It's a local association affiliated to the British BeeKeepers Association. Joining such a local club is the way to get into beekeeping. And a fine bunch of ladies and gentlemen they are at Ealing, to be sure. My 6 week beeginners course (2 hours a week) finished today. Every Thursday, 25 of us had huddled up in a cramped and freezing hut in West London. The course was horribly oversubscribed, but fun for that, I thought. I learned a fair but too, despite having avidly read several books before I started. Next there will be some practical sessions at the Apiary every couple of Saturdays, again led by the wonderfully gregarious and generious lot who run the association. Well done, you lot! (you know who you are).