The Nelson County Beekeepers association and the Nelson County Cooperative Extension Service hosted a “Sustainable Beekeeping School” for the central Kentucky area.  The focus of the school was to teach sustainable practices that could help keep beekeepers engaged in the practice of beekeeping while decreasing the out lay of expenses and decrease losses.  The day long workshop looked at how to properly observe nature to gauge what might be happening in the hive.  We looked at various ways to acquire bees and how to keep the bees you have in the bee yard.  Discussions were held on how to create more bees and colonies by conducting splits and rearing your own queens.  Other topics covered included pest control in the hives, storing equipment and making sure the colonies are more winter ready.  

We surveyed our 50 participants and discovered that 35% were in the stage of consideration. Meaning that they have zero hives at present and 42% had zero years of experience.  This indicates that some of the participants have colonies but little experience keeping bees. Fifty percent of the participants indicated that they had a low or uncomfortable level of understanding of beekeeping at the beginning of the workshop. Ninety eight percent of the participants indicated that their knowledge increased in regard to beekeeping, and as a result of the class 83% indicated that they gained enough confidence to add more hives to their bee yards.