Beekeeping Short Course at Botanical Garden

Last year I got started with my bees by taking the "short course" offered by what is now my beekeeping group: the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers. This year the short course is on

Saturday, January 20,
from 8:30 - 4:30
at the Atlanta Botanical Garden
1345 Piedmont Ave. N.E
Atlanta, Ga 30309

The course is great to help you get started in beekeeping. I learned how to build the parts of the hive that are essential (how to put together a frame, for example); how to think about the year in the apiary; how to consider handling various pests and bee diseases; when and how to feed the bees; when the honey flow starts; the biology of the bee; and all about pollination (did you know that 80% of what we eat is in some way dependent on bees to pollinate some plant involved in that product?)

There are also great door prizes and lots of them. Last year I won a complete set of deep super frames (looked like a pile of specially cut wood to me, but they were easy to construct and quite helpful). I'm one of those people who never wins anything, but I did at the short course as well as did many others.

My job for the club is to put together the Goody Bag for the course. We do have lots of goodies - from tiny jars of honey put up by one of our members, PN Williams, to literature from the National Honey Board and the Georgia Dept of Agriculture.

If there are any of you out there who'd like to come, here's where you register. A day of bee education like this is not to be missed!