Learning about Bees

A Warre Hive that Chris Built.

One of the many facets of our homestead will be bees. We love bees. They help pollinate plants, and honey bees provide you with another harvest: Honey! Not to mention we have heard that they are a very rewarding hobby. We have been studying bees and beekeeping on the internet, and it was a natural segue for me to take the certification course through our local beekeeping association when the opportunity arose.

I really enjoyed the course from the Lewis County Beekeeper's Association. They are a very knowledgeable group and they tend to have a very open mind when it comes to doing things naturally. I really appreciated that! I am a certified Apprentice Level Beekeeper now.

That being said, I am still on a journey to finding my own best practices for beekeeping, and I may end up doing things differently than they taught. I also listened to a podcast from Paul Wheaton at Permies.com titled "Reverence for Bees" with Jacqueline Freeman. She lives here in Western Washington and she has her own ideas about keeping bees! I really enjoyed her style, but I haven't learned enough to share yet, so I'll post more later. For now, I will say that she says to leave the bees alone, horde your own honey incase you need it to feed your bees, and she likes Warre Hives (which we like too!). This seems to me, to be a very natural and healthy way to raise bees. Hmmm.... I'm still learning!