Beekeeping evening courses are managed and run on a commercial basis by John Hamer, a Surrey bee farmer, using his purpose built facility at Blackhorse Apiaries in St Johns near Woking. The bees have been selected for their quiet handling characteristics and all essential equipment is provided. The tuition has been designed to work with local associations and equipment vendors to provide continual support for beekeepers during the early years. It aims to encourage beekeepers to understand the principles underlying what they are doing, and to develop an efficient, integrated management style, keeping beekeepers in touch with their local environment and enabling them to care responsibly for their livestock.
The courses are arranged so that the students can begin as novices learning to handle bees and establishing a colony through the first winter. They can then progress to managing the build up of a mature, productive colony for the extraction of a crop of surplus honey, and to control the number and strain of bees they wish to keep.
There are three course groups, Beekeeping for Beginners, Practical Beekeeping, and Further Beekeeping, as well as several single day 'events'. Read about them here, or download our summary (.pdf).
education and support for suburban beekeepers