We’re continuing to work on our bee-breeding study. This means we’re managing up to sixty hives at prairie-seed company Agrecol, about a half hour south of Madison. We’re always busy sorting equipment, moving bees, splitting hives, and managing colonies. If you’re a beginning beekeeper, we’d be glad to have you get some hands-on experience. If you’ve got some experience under your belt, we’d be especially glad for your help, both in working with the bees and helping guide the “bee-ginners”.
We’ll be prepping hives (end of March), installing packages (begin of April), inspecting hives (April–October), making splits (mid-Summer), and more.
We’re compiling a list of volunteers. If you sign up for the list, we’ll email you as we have scheduled work out at the apiary. Unless we get an unwieldy number of people signed up, you’d be able to come to any, all, or none of the work days. The main thing is we need a reasonable ratio of experienced to inexperienced people. While we’re hoping to get less-experienced people some hands-on work, we’re also trying to accomplish the project’s goals. We appreciate your willing hands.
We request that you bring a veil, even if you don’t wear one in your own apiary. You are not required to wear it, but it should be available if needed. We will provide nirile gloves, but you can wear your own. We will provide hive tools to avoid cross contamination. You are welcome to bring your own smoker and other tools.
If you’re interested, please fill out the following forms. The first helps us compile a list of volunteers and make sure we have a good mix of experience. The second is a liability waiver, including COVID questions. Our COVID precautions will evolve as the situation improves (we all hope!).
Source link