Bee Biology and Equipment Class slides

Beekeeping Class Schedule 2014

Here is a schedule of upcoming beekeeping classes. Classes are FREE.

4:30-6:00 Hands-on Beekeeping Class. SE corner of Mapleton Park.
6:15-9:00 Classroom Instruction. Mapleton Memorial Hall.

BRING: Protective clothing and a chair.

March 14. Honeybee Biology and Beekeeping equipment

March 21 Managing Honeybee Colonies

March 28 Harvesting & Extracting Honey, Honeybee Diseases and Pests

If you miss this series, we will have a fast version on the following dates from 5:15 until dark.
May 16 in American Fork
May 23 at The Honey Jar in Honeyville, UT.
May 30 in American Fork, UT

For more information, email info@thehoneycompany.com.

Hands-On Beekeeping Course Photos

Here are some photos of the hands-on beekeeping class on March 14. Derek Haynie, the expert photographer, took these pictures. Thanks, Derek! We're looking forward to the next class installment on March 21. 

Here is the class gathered around a few of Stan's hives. The goal for today was to see workers, drones, the queen, eggs, larvae, and pupae. Also drawn comb, honey, and pollen. 

A frame of worker bees on some capped over larvae. Oh, and lovely Maple Mountain in the background.

On this frame, we can see the black foundation in the lower right corner, some partially drawn hexagon-shaped comb nearby, and some fully drawn comb up near the bees. Everyone looks sharp in their new beekeeping veils!

Do you love the worker bee on the side, flying in for a landing. Great shot!

They only saw 2 drone bees in the whole colony, but some drone comb will soon hatch.

Finally, here is a photo of our indoor class.

Pysanka 2014

We had a homeschool group come over to do Pysanka eggs with beeswax candles. We were learning about Russia and the Ukraine in a geography club.

We use a hot stylus to apply beeswax designs to a hollowed egg. The stylus has a little cup that holds a reservoir of melted wax and a hole in the bottom to draw with. We use the candle flame for heating the stylus and melt the beeswax.

Photo from squidoo.com

Here we are carefully drawing on eggs with wax. The wax resists dye, so they used the wax to mask color.

Making Pysanka is a sequence of applying beeswax and then dipping in dye. We dye the light colors first, so we don't contaminate them with darker colors. Pysanka dye is very permanent. We went through MANY paper towels in drying the dye on the eggs.

Once the final coat of dye is applied, we melted the on the eggs with the candle flame heat and wiped wax off with a paper towel.

Here are the final Pysanky. The kids ranged in age from 4 to 13. Didn't they do a nice job? I loved how seriously they took this craft project. They were so polite and respectful of our dyes and equipment.