Flow Hive Beekeeping

The Complete Flow Hive and Flow Hive Essentials (April)

We offer two very different Flow Hive classes...

The Complete Flow Hive

The Complete Flow Hive is for the beginning beekeeper who has deiced on a flow hive and now is faced with the prospect of keeping bees.

This is a hybrid Short Course and 101 Course focused entirely on how to successfully and responsibly keep honeybees using Flow Hive equipment.  The four class sessions are  three hours long, and the discussion of equipment is limited to the Flow Hive, likewise the discussion of honeybees is limited to the varieties that are well kept in a Flow Hive.  The historical context is relegated to the reading assignments.  

Topics:

• Bee Biology and Life-cycle, and Why You Need To Know It

• Colony dynamics,developing observation skills, record keeping

• Beekeeping Equipment: The Flow Hive, Tools, and Protective Gear, lighting the smoker and keeping it going

• Handling beekeeping equipment: a dry run on moving all the components of the hive

• Basic hive inspection, practice for handling the hive with live bees, observation skills

• The Beekeeping Year in DC: What to Do and When, hands on practice for  what to do by season from spring buildup and swarm management to shutting the hive down for winter

• Challenges to Bee Health: Diseases, Pests and Parasites, hands on practice for applying treatments and preventing pests 

• Bee Forage: What Bees Eat in the Mid-Atlantic

• How to Harvest Safely Using Your Flow Hive

Flow Hive Essentials

Flow Hive Essentials is for a more experienced beekeeper that is interested in expanding into this new and strange equipment.  

This one day, three hour workshop  is offered to experienced beekeepers and those who have completed the Short Course.  It's purpose is to introduce the Flow Hive equipment and to highlight bee management techniques specific to the equipment.  

Topics:

• Handling the Flow Hive: a dry run on moving all the components of the hive

• The Flow Hive Year in DC: What to Do and When, hands on practice for  what to do by season from spring buildup and swarm management to shutting the hive down for winter

• Challenges to Bee Health: Diseases, Pests and Parasites, hands on practice for applying treatments and preventing pests 

• How to Harvest Safely Using Your Flow Hive