Welcome to NY Bee Wellness, your source for maintaining healthy honey bee colonies

an educational nonprofit program to teach beekeepers honey bee disease recognition & to promote honey bee health

Past Workshops

Three intensive 2 day, skills oriented, hands on workshops were held in 2012. These were part of a 3 year Train the Trainer program to teach beekeepers techniques in diagnosing, treating, and preventing honey bee diseases. Primarily targeting New York beekeepers with less than 10 years experience and women beekeepers, participants from other states are welcome as space permits.Funded by the USDA-NIFA Beginning Farmers & Ranchers Development Program, and by matching funds from the Empire State Honey Producers Association.

In 2012, the workshops were held at 3 different locations in New York: Canandaigua (Western NY),Pocantico Hills (north of NYC), Ballston Spa (Albany area)
Various NY beekeeping clubs sponsored a team to attend the workshop, as an investment to the beekeepers in their community. The workshops were also a way to prepare for the EAS Master Beekeeper. The intent is to guide beekeepers in how to check their hives like a bee inspector, or as close as possible, using a low student/teacher ratio.

The program is divided into 2 levels:

*Tier I (the Trainers), attend the intensive workshop, should have had at least 2 years of beekeeping experience (including Winter), some teaching experience whether it be as a primary instructor or as an assistant, recommendation from a beekeepers group or a CSA or other agriculture group that you intend to teach, describe why they wished to join the program,and completed online reading assignments in preparation for the workshop.
*Tier II are the beekeepers that will be taught by the Tier I trainers at their local club or organization as a group. NY Bee Wellness volunteers will also provide mentorship and teaching tools at the this level.
Content from The Beekeepers Handbook 4th Edition (Sammataro & Avitabile) will be used.

Diseases covered are American & European Foulbrood, Nosema, Mites, Chalk Brood, Viruses, CCD, and other bee maladies.
Topics include:
• record keeping & use of surveys
• Specimen collection for in field testing
• How to prepare specimens for lab diagnosis
• Microscope use
• accessing resources online
• preparing an outline for teaching a group
• mentoring
The BeeInformed.org Winter Loss and Beekeeper Management surveys will be presented in the workshop and all participants in the workshop are strongly encouraged to complete the surveys as a means to establish the efficacy of the workshop.
Tier I instructors were experts in the field of apiculture such as Dr. Larry Connor, the Ontario Tech Transfer team, Diana Sammataro, Doug McRory & Al Avitable.

 

Contact: Please contact Pat Bono with any questions about the workshops,
Pat AT NYBeeWellness.org ; 585-820-6619

 

These workshops are made possible through funding from the USDA NIFA Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program, Grant # 2011-494400-30631, and with matching funds from the Empire State Honey Producers Association.