Helping Your Hives Thrive and Grow

You've installed your bees and things are starting to happen in the hives, what's next?

Join our two-part class and find out everything you need to know about helping your hives thrive and grow! This course is designed with mid-year maintenance in mind to help beekeepers keep their hives healthy. Learn about the nutritional requirements and how to monitor/maintain the growing hive. This includes protecting honeybee colonies from harmful diseases, parasites, and other pests. The best way to protect is the ability to identify problems early and that's why the focus of these sessions will be on identifying and eradicating common honeybee maladies such as Varroa, ants, foulbrood, and nosema.

Gilroy Beekeepers Association (GBA) has been supporting local hobby beekeepers and bringing those curious about bees together for over 20 years. Our members range from experienced beekeepers to complete newbies. Members benefit from regular meetings, access to great speakers and training opportunities like this one - the ideal combination for learning and sharing about beekeeping.

We will be kicking off our Helping Your Hives Thrive and Grow class with a virtual meeting, followed with a hands-on session at the Club Apiary.

Day 1: Zoom
TBA

Join experienced and master beekeepers from the comfort of your computer for the first in our two-part course. We will discuss:

• How to assess your brood and take corrective actions
• What you can expect of a healthy hive at this time of the year
• Identifying and treating for common pests
• Preparing for summer
• Syrup prep
• When to give and when to reduce space in a hive
• Influences on honey production

Note: attendance at this midweek online class is a prerequisite to the practical class at the weekend.

Day 2: at the Club Apairy
TBA

Here's your chance to get together with experienced beekeeper mentors and put into practice what you have learned online:

• How to do a hive inspection
• Brood assessment
• Hive expectations/simple fixes
• Recognizing and testing for common maladies
• Space - when to give and when to reduce space in a hive

Note: each participant is expected to bring personal protective equipment (PPE) including veil, jacket, gloves and boots. PPE is available at these establishments:

• Mann Lake
• BetterBee
• Dadant & Sons
• Sam's Downtown Feed