Through the Kentucky State University Small Farm Program, KSU Small-Scale Farmer Grant Program, and the KSU Beginning Farmer Grant, in collaboration with the University of Kentucky Extension, a limited resource beginning beekeeper farmer received much-needed instructions and lessons on beekeeping, constructing bee boxes, and value-added products.

    Laura Rogers, a Small Farm Area Agent of Kentucky State University, offered beginning beekeeping classes at the Corbin Library in Whitley County. There were a series of 5 classes. The first class, "Introduction to Basic Beekeeping." The second class "Building Boxes and Frames". The third class "Bee pest and diseases." The fourth class, "Harvesting Honey!" The Fifth and final class of the series "We have honey now what!"

    Ken Smith, of Whitley County, beginning beekeeper, attended the classes. Mr. Smith had purchased two hives, and he had lost one before the class series. Discourage and feeling down at the first class. Smith asked Rogers if she could do a farm visit and examine his hive. Smith said the person who sold him the hives offered little to no instructions. 

    Smith had attended a couple of the local county bee club meetings before the classes. He said many of the lessons he had participated in or seen on the internet offer little he could understand. He felt defeated, lost, and alone with his honeybees.

    Rogers's first class, "Introduction to Basic Beekeeping," covered the different types of honeybees in the hive.  The life cycle of the honeybees. The class included information on how the young bee emerges from nurse bees to as they age they become adult bees that gather the nectar and pollen. Explain the different types of honeybees. The drone or male bees, the worker or female bees, and the queen. Their purpose and why they are in the hive for the betterment of the colony.

    The second class covered building honeybee boxes from wood construction, cutting the boxes out of wood, and assembling the boxes and frames. 

    Thrid classes covered the different pests that invade the honeybee hive and the treatment of these pests.

      The fourth class discussed honey production and how to process the honey for sale or home use. A demonstration was done to show how to extract the honey from the frames within the beehive.

    The fifth class discussed value-added products made from the honey and by-products of the hive, such as beeswax demonstration, making lip balm from the beeswax produced by honey bees. 

    Rogers made a farm visit and explained the biology of the hive to Smith. Explain the one hive left possibly be spilt into more than one the following year. Demonstrate how to add more boxes to the hives. Rogers discussed how to examine the brood nest and see the honeybees' metamorphosis and what this means to the hives' survival.

    After the classes two years later, Smith now has six bee colonies. Each colony of honeybees is worth $200.00 per hive just in honeybees. Giving Smith a total of potential earning of $1200.00.

 Smith state he had constructed and put together 25 bee boxes for honey production and brood. Each box he built and constructed is worth $25.00 each from a local bee supply store.  Giving him the potential earning of $625.00. 

      After the value-added class on bee's wax, Smith has made 25 chapped stick tubes to pass out as an advertisement for future sales. Each lip balm stick tube has a potential value of $4.00 each. Giving Mr. Smith a potential of $100.00. 

    Smith stated he sold or gave away 18 quarts of honey. The local price for a quart of honey is $20.00 per quart. This gives Smith the potential earnings of $360.00. Smith stated he gave so much away this last year to let people know he would have honey and value-added products for sale.

      Even though 2020 was a difficult year due to COVID 19, Smith had the potential earnings of $2285.

       All excited, Ken Smith said he had worked with others with his bees, but their teaching never made sense to him until he attended the bee classes at the library. He said he was a "white knuckle learner." He learned more from the series at the library than he had anywhere.  

    To him, 2020 in honeybees was an excellent year—one of success for him instead of his worse fear, one of total loss with his honeybees. Smith now demonstrates confidence with his bees to divide them to produce more hives, harvest honey, and make lip balm and sell it.