Harvesting and Hive Products

Your bees have been busy making honey - how do I harvest?

Join our class and find out everything you need to know about harvesting, hive products, and summer hive maintenance! This course is designed to show you how and when to harvest honey, wax and other hive products. We will also review summer hive maintenance - proper feeding and treatment. The best way to protect is to identify problems early - that's why the focus of these sessions will continue to 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.

The Harvesting and Hive Products class is a hands-on field class.

When: TBA

Location:  Location to be announced

GBA Member Instructors:  Master Beekeeper Sara Cutrignelli (UC Davis)

Cost per person: $80.00

Click here to enroll.

At the field location
Date and Location TBA

Here's your chance to get together with experienced beekeeper mentors:

  • How to do a hive inspection
  • Selecting and removing honey frames from the hive
  • Uncapping techniques
  • Loading and running the extractor
  • Wax rendering
  • Other hive products
  • Cleaning and maintaining frames and boxes

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

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.

When: 
TBA

Location:  Zoom and bee yard location to be announced

GBA Member Instructors:  Master Beekeepers Sara Cutrignelli (UC Davis) and Arthur Kubogamell (Cornell), plus GBA mentors.

Cost per person: $80.00, or $280 for the 4 class series

Click here to enroll.

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:

James Haskell Beekeeping, Classes

Reducing Stress On Your Hives – July 2022 class

Summer is here - do your bees have enough to eat?

This course covers the common stressors for your bees - food, water, heat, and pests, and how to mitigate them. The best way to protect is to identify problems early - that's why the focus of these sessions will continue to be on identifying and mitigating common honeybee maladies Varroa, and other pests.

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.

The Reducing Stress On Your Hives is two sessions: a Zoom class Wednesday evening, July 27th at 7PM, and a hands-on field class on Sat, July 30 from 8-10AM.

When:
Wednesday evening Zoom, July 27 at 7PM
Saturday morning, July 30 at 8AM

Location:  Location to be announced

GBA Member Instructors:  Master Beekeepers Sara Cutrignelli (UC Davis) and Arthur Kubogamell (Cornell)

Cost per person: $80.00, or $280 for the 4 class series

Click here to enroll.

Zoom
Wednesday, July 27th at 7PM

  • Common stresses
  • Varroa
  • Nutritional Stress
  • How to provide food
  • Ants and other pests
  • Heat stress
  • Water
  • Hive inspections
  • Mite Counts

At the field location at 8 am
Saturday, July 30

Here's your chance to get together with experienced beekeeper mentors:

  • How to do a hive inspection
  • How to feed syrup and sugar
  • How to feed pollen patties
  • Mite counts
  • Controlling other pests

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

James Haskell Beekeeping, Classes

Harvesting and Hive Products – June 2022

Your bees have been busy making honey - how do I harvest?

Join our class and find out everything you need to know about harvesting, hive products, and summer hive maintenance! This course is designed to show you how and when to harvest honey, wax and other hive products. We will also review summer hive maintenance - proper feeding and treatment. The best way to protect is to identify problems early - that's why the focus of these sessions will continue to 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.

The Harvesting and Hive Products class is a hands-on field class on Sun, June 12 (8-12 am).

When: Sunday morning, June 12 at 8AM

Location:  Location to be announced

GBA Member Instructors:  Master Beekeepers Sara Cutrignelli (UC Davis) and Arthur Kubogamell (Cornell)

Cost per person: $80.00

Click here to enroll.

At the field location at 8 am
Sunday, June 12

Here's your chance to get together with experienced beekeeper mentors:

  • How to do a hive inspection
  • Selecting and removing honey frames from the hive
  • Uncapping techniques
  • Loading and running the extractor
  • Wax rendering
  • Other hive products
  • Cleaning and maintaining frames and boxes

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

Katherin Beekeeping

Historical look at keeping bees in California

Here are a couple of oldies but goodies - especially useful for beekeepers just starting out in California. However please be warned that some of the material presented in the publications is dated and you are advised to consult more recent publications regarding current laws, mites and bee disease treatments.

"These publications are copyrighted by the Regents of the University of California and are reproduced with permission." Click on a title to download the PDF.

Why read these books? If published today either of these books might be named "Beekeeping in a Nutshell" or something along those lines as they are short, compact and very complete for their size. Hive construction, the life cycle of bees, common and uncommon problems, queen rearing, packages, almonds, honey and a lot more is what you will find in very few pages. If you are thinking of beekeeping or just want to know more about the subject either of these books is a good place to start as current books are much longer and cost. If you have bees, and live in California, you will find items of interest that is not mentioned in books written "back east". Get both of them as, even though one is listed as a 'revision', the treatment and details do differ.

Fundamentals of California Beekeeping (Manual 42) was published in 1971 and was available through the California Cooperative Extension Service offices located through out the state of California with a list price of $1.00. When it became dated it was revised and republished as Beekeeping in California in 1987. However, considering that many aspects of beekeeping have not changed in over a century, all current publications are written for places where it is much colder than most of California in the winter, and books like these are of historical interest to beekeepers permission was granted for these electronic versions to be freely distributed through the web site of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild. You are free to distribute this electronic form and/or printed versions of this electronic form as long as you do not do so for a profit and do not modify the contents.

Permission for electronic reproduction of the publications was granted by ANR Communication Services which is a service branch of the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) of the University of California. While these beekeeping books are no longer available from them, they do have many publications that might be of interest to anyone interested in any kind of bees. You are invited to visit their web site at either http://anrcs.ucdavis.edu/ or http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/ and review their current publication lists.