Workshops
Small groups, in the yard, hands in a hive. Three across the season, each one timed to the month it actually matters in.
Members of the Door County Beekeepers Club attend free. That is not a discount — the club is where this material came from and where it belongs. The fee for everyone else covers the yard time, the equipment, and the fact that opening hives for a group costs the colonies something.
Anyone can join the club at any time, membership runs a year, and it costs less than one workshop. If you are local and on the fence, join the club rather than pay me — you get the monthly meetings and the rest of the members along with it.
Bring a veil. Workshops run rain or shine unless the bees say otherwise, in which case you get the date moved, not a lecture indoors.
Making splits and spring management
Where new colonies come from. Reading a colony that is ready to be split, making the split, and what to do with it afterward — alongside the rest of the spring job: giving room ahead of the bees rather than behind them, and getting the season started without losing half of it to a swarm.
Queen rearing and summer management
Grafting, cell builders, and mating nucs — the practical end of never having to buy a queen again. Plus what the colonies need through the flow, and what to do with the ones that are not going to make a crop.
Honey harvest and mite control
Pulling and extracting the crop, then straight into the decision that determines whether the colony sees spring: wash, read the number, treat, wash again. August is when the winter is decided and most people do not realize it at the time.
To be set
Exact dates go up once the season is closer. Workshops are scheduled to the bees, not to the calendar — a cold late spring moves the first one.
Registration
Registration and waiver to come. Everyone attending signs a waiver, members included. Bees sting, yards are uneven, and the paperwork is a five-minute problem that prevents a much larger one.