From the BBKA;
Queen Rearing
Training for Queen Raising
It is intended that we run six basic skills queen raising courses - for people who can be trained to rear queens in their own branches as association activities. A total of 72 people trained at this level is what we envisage initially.
This initiative fits in nicely with the new proposals by Defra for much more reliance on good local queen supplies therefore diminishing the number of imported queens.
We hope to start the theory sessions during the winter. This programme ‘queen rearing for beginners,’ will concentrate on beekeepers with a small number of colonies and use the likes of the Miller method. There will be no grafting involved.
It is hoped that from this beginning members will start their own queen rearing groups. We realise that many AAs already have their own queen rearing programmes and we are not in any way trying to usurp or interfere with those. However a lot of members are asking us about queen rearing so this programme is designed for them. More information will be available soon in BBKA News and on the website.
Training More Queen Raising Trainers
Thinking wider than just the 72 competent people as will be provided as above, and then to extend the queen raising abilities to as many associations and branches as quickly as possible, we plan a higher level training to provide for the ‘Training of Trainers,’ to equip them with higher level skills and a variety of queen raising competencies, who can then train others in the basic skills. There will be 4 higher level skills courses of 10 people. This will likely appeal to General Husbandry (GH) and Advanced Husbandry (GH) qualified people.
It is intended to run queen rearing courses where there will be six centres where twelve people per centre can be trained to rear queens in their own branches. We are hoping to cascade this out across the country if it is successful, so we are putting plans in place to start this early next year in order to take advantage of the season in 2019.
Seems a bit odd that grafting will not be covered, very odd! It also seems (to me) to be three steps back, trying to raise 'local' bees from poor stock, and the known aggression problems after just one or two generations.
Queen Rearing
Training for Queen Raising
It is intended that we run six basic skills queen raising courses - for people who can be trained to rear queens in their own branches as association activities. A total of 72 people trained at this level is what we envisage initially.
This initiative fits in nicely with the new proposals by Defra for much more reliance on good local queen supplies therefore diminishing the number of imported queens.
We hope to start the theory sessions during the winter. This programme ‘queen rearing for beginners,’ will concentrate on beekeepers with a small number of colonies and use the likes of the Miller method. There will be no grafting involved.
It is hoped that from this beginning members will start their own queen rearing groups. We realise that many AAs already have their own queen rearing programmes and we are not in any way trying to usurp or interfere with those. However a lot of members are asking us about queen rearing so this programme is designed for them. More information will be available soon in BBKA News and on the website.
Training More Queen Raising Trainers
Thinking wider than just the 72 competent people as will be provided as above, and then to extend the queen raising abilities to as many associations and branches as quickly as possible, we plan a higher level training to provide for the ‘Training of Trainers,’ to equip them with higher level skills and a variety of queen raising competencies, who can then train others in the basic skills. There will be 4 higher level skills courses of 10 people. This will likely appeal to General Husbandry (GH) and Advanced Husbandry (GH) qualified people.
It is intended to run queen rearing courses where there will be six centres where twelve people per centre can be trained to rear queens in their own branches. We are hoping to cascade this out across the country if it is successful, so we are putting plans in place to start this early next year in order to take advantage of the season in 2019.
Seems a bit odd that grafting will not be covered, very odd! It also seems (to me) to be three steps back, trying to raise 'local' bees from poor stock, and the known aggression problems after just one or two generations.