Good suggestion Jimbo. Maybe Gavin would take it to the committee?Originally Posted by Jimbo
Good suggestion Jimbo. Maybe Gavin would take it to the committee?
It is a tricky issue though Jim as those who volunteer will not necessarily be the ones you would want beginners to get advice from.
Philthis could be structured into a course with certificate at the end, I'm sure it would be very popular and far more meaningful than the prelim course currently running
That could well be what develops, but those running it would need to be paid for their time as it would be a lot of work organising a course and supervising it.
Practical beekeeping needs to be run by good bee handlers and those who can teach the skills as opposed to people who hold the intermediate certificate or whatever.
There are people who hold the FIBKA intermediate cert who have had little or no exposure to bees or none at all in a few cases I know of.
Locally a load of people failed the exam last year so maybe the bar has been raised.
Even so, there is still next to no practical element in it so I would say the exam is asking the wrong questions of those taking it.
It's been 4 years since my prelim and I was told at the end of it to go straight to intermediate. But hands on is more important at this stage! Watching other beekeepers and listening to the advice of knowledgable practitioners is by far more important than exams, well at least the exams in the current system.
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Hi all having passed the basic exam last year, and am starting the intermediate this weekend, I found all the practical side very straight forward as I was only doing what I did every week, it was more the bee diseases and treatments I found a tricky, but I would say there are probably one of the most important things to know, is what to look for, when you never seen it before, as it effects not just you but your surrounding beekeeper, so theory has to be a big part of the exam, not that am any good at it as I work with my hands for living and I don't find studying very easy at all, but it does keep me out of the pub
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I don't think there is really all that much that can be done to stop someone from setting up their own association or venture and accessing public funds whether their intentions are honourable, misguided or nefarious. This does present problems in terms of beekeeping in general and our image/relationship with those around us. I know of at least one case where someone with extremely limited experience is offering beginners classes. Perhaps the structure of the sba, it's relationship with and nature of local associations could evolve to counter this? Maybe the sba could look into applications from New associations in closer detail? The other thing that strikes me is there doesn't seem to be any effort to collate records of stock numbers at local or national level.
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Hi snimmo. We do collect various bits of information from the members in our association like how many colonies do you have going into winter, how many colonies do you have in spring, what varroa treatments did you use, what was your honey crop etc. We have done this for a number of years and it makes quite interesting reading, example we experienced a 13% colony loss last year in our association but this year we are expecting a smaller percent. The honey crop last year averaged 30lbs per colony but the year before was a lot less etc. If all the SBA associations were asked to collect similar information and it was collated by the SBA it would give a better picture of the state of colonies in Scotland. I do know that the SBA do ask for various bits of information but apeal to the individual members to submit the information and not to the associations who may contain more accurate information.
In our SBA system I do think the Basic Beemaster has some benefits. Focuses the mind, crystalises the knowledge etc. I sat mine after some years of beekeeping and the best thing about it for me was getting to have a personal beekeeping session with the legend that is Ian Craig.
I moved on to sit Modules 1 and 2 and to be honest I was somewhat underwhelmed. Module 2 in particular was a drag and an exercise in rote "learning" which I think has had no real lasting effect on my beekeeping. I meant (and still mean to some time) to take Module 3 as I think there's some good stuff in there that I could do with being more familiar with but I'm a bit "meh"when it comes to the rest of them. Sort of thinking all the stuff I'm doing around queen rearing and starting up with II has left the module stuff behind.
On the exams I am sitting the module 1 exam on Saturday and I've found the process of studying for it has encouraged me to delve deeper into various subjects
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Our branch runs study groups following the module syllabus but with the emphasis on learning and discussing not on taking the exam. Semi formal and all get to contribute. Friendships form and buddy systems operate to practice techniques and cover holidays. We get to visit each other's bees
Sorry - phone fingers! We visit each other's bees and get experience of lots of colonies.
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