Metro Atlanta Short Course in Beekeeping

Last weekend was the Metro Atlanta Short Course. We had 120 participants! There is such an increased interest in beekeeping in our country. I hope some of the 120 will actually buy bees and get started.

My job was to put together a table to show slide shows of hive inspections. So I showed up with two laptops, two different slide shows (one of the slide shows is available on this blog for you to watch), and a honeybee table cloth that my daughter gave me and a scarf, used here as table decoration that a dear friend made for me.



We had many well-qualified speakers and the participants went home with a CD of the PowerPoints of the presenters (but it didn't include my slide show on how to do a hive inspection - just a handout).

One of our best speakers (because he is such a good teacher) is Dr. Jamie Ellis. Jamie got his PhD at the University of Georgia but is now at the University of Florida. He shared many interesting bee facts with the participants. Here he is talking about how larvae occupy the cells.



At a break our participants were treated to honey ice cream. One of our members takes 6 pounds of honey to Greenwood Ice Cream which is here in Atlanta and has them create honey ice cream just for this event. It is absolutely gourmet and delicious.


In all the short course was a success.

I think our bee club still needs to work on a few things - we are a little starry eyed by the fabulous speakers we can invite, and in that way, have lost sight of a few important things.

A beekeeper leaving our course should feel confident about how to install their bees and how to open the hives for the first time, and those things are barely addressed (if at all) in our short course. But 2011 is another year and maybe we can focus on the basics for the next course.