Toolkit – general points

Some general points to teaching

I am not a trained teacher and neither are many of those teaching beekeeping. It may be those who are professional teachers will disagree with some of the points I make, or ways of teaching, but most of us do the best we can with the skills and experience we have gained in life and at our local BKA. We are doing it to pass on the knowledge we have gained to help others, who, in turn, should do the same. I have had varied experiences of dealing with people, including running my own business for 25 years, captain of a village cricket team, chaired a lot of meetings and teaching/demonstrating beekeeping for over 50 years. I have learnt a little about the different ways people learn, their strengths and weaknesses and how to get the best out of them. You will notice that some of the above situations are work related, some hobby or pastime. Although they are rather different, very often I find that people behave in similar ways at work as they do in their hobbies, such as attitude, moodiness, practicality, etc. Without poking my nose into private lives, I often quietly find out a little about people, as it’s so easy to innocently say the wrong thing or misinterpret behaviour. I try to assess those I teach and treat them accordingly, depending on what I’m teaching, of course. It is so easy to pigeonhole people, but we must remember we are dealing with individuals, not automatons.

I think body language is important, because I get quite a bit of information from that. If a group or person is with me, I tend to go into the topic a bit deeper, or perhaps move sideways to bring in other relevant things, but if they aren’t understanding what I am saying or doing, I may do more explaining at a basic level. An example being life cycles, where someone who struggles to grasp what happens and when, is unlikely to understand the relevance to swarming, yet those who know will benefit.

I will give an anecdote to illustrate what I mean. This could happen to anyone, though, perhaps in a different way. I once tutored a whole day queen rearing course, with about 12-15 people. One person, who happened to have all the posh new kit didn’t know the life cycle of the queen, or what happens in a colony when the queen is removed. I expected those who booked to have known them, but what do you do when you have one person who hasn’t reached that stage? I noticed a few rolling eyes and sighs, so I took the attitude that the whole group who had paid and may have had a day off work or rearranged something, shouldn’t be held up by someone who didn’t know the absolute basics, that all beekeepers should know. I had a quiet word at break time and found out it was a beginner who was taught by their BKA to requeen every year with a bought queen. They wanted to raise their own queen, rather than buy, but didn’t know how to because their BKA didn’t teach it, so they booked on the course. My attitude changed quickly! I quietly told the others the situation and that I would manage it, which they accepted. It would have been so easy to have dismissed that person as an idiot, but with a little knowledge and understanding they were helped and everyone was satisfied.

Perhaps it’s not the normal way of looking at it, but my attitude is that if individuals are more knowledgeable and skilful, then the BKA is and overall, so is the craft nationally. I get a huge amount of pleasure from teaching people who learn, see the relevance of what they have learnt and quickly become competent beekeepers. I have always valued my time and I try to make the best use of it, so I’m happy to spend time with these. There are, however, some who simply can’t grasp what is happening in a colony and are impractical, who I call “perpetual beginners”. I would rather spend time with the first group and perhaps find a way of filtering out the second group. That may appear to be unkind, but I am concerned about their bees that may die because they don’t notice they are short of food, so starve, have drone laying queens or are weak colonies going into winter.

I think it’s important for the BKA to have a consistent way of teaching. At WGBKA, we only teach one way, which to the outsider, might seem narrow thinking, but it works well. We take the attitude that if all demonstrators and teachers teach the same way, there is little confusion, especially for beginners. We have all heard the old saying “If you ask 6 beekeepers…….”. That’s probably because there is no consistency in the BKA. I have spoken or demonstrated at BKAs, where there are clearly divisions, one was where two demonstrators had an argument, where one favoured having Buckfast bees in poly hives, the other locally adapted bees in wooden hives. In addition to being unpleasant for beginners, it must have been confusing. Those who do the classroom teaching aren’t always the same as those who do the practical. I strongly suggest that the BKA decides what they want and sticks to it, as I have seen instances where there has been a change of personnel, who have quickly discarded what others have spent a long time assembling, so wasting time and resources.

You may find that some of your members may not be familiar with some of the material that we recommend in this toolkit, such as locally adapted bees and varroa resistance, simply because they haven’t been taught it. Try to explain it in a way that doesn’t make them feel they are doing something wrong.

I think one of the most important points when teaching is to enjoy it yourself and encourage others to share that enjoyment.

Roger Patterson.