Beekeeping Training

The Makana Meadery beekeeping training programme consists of two courses and if necessary a certain number of follow up visits to trainees at their apiaries.

Beekeeping Level One

This course, consisting of a two and a half day course, or a two day weekend course (longer hours), aims to teach basic beekeeping literacy. At the end of the course, the trainee will know the types of bees in a beehive, the basic products of a hive, how to perform simple hive manipulations, how to remove a wild swarm, and how to hive a swarm. The trainee will also be shown the basics of honey extraction and processing. The trainee then writes an examination to assess whether at the end of the course he or she has learnt sufficient beekeeping skills to be a small scale beekeeper.

Beekeeping Level Two

This course, consisting of a two and a half day course, or a two day weekend course (longer hours) aims to equip the beekeeper with skills to enhance a small scale beekeeping operation and allow a beekeeper to develop value added beekeeping. In this course the beekeeper is shown how to manipulate a hive to increase bee populations, assess queen strength and laying efficiency, how to make honeycomb foundation, how to set up trap box lines, how to migrate bees and how to produce value added beekeeping products such as beeswax polish. At the end of this course the beekeeper can expand their beehives to a larger scale operation, and has sufficient skills and knowledge of beekeeping to operate within the global beekeeping arena.

Beekeeping trainers Vuyani Ntantiso and Phumlani Honi working at Dutchman's Gold Apiaries in Ontario, Canada.