Overview

Beekeeping is fun! This is a well-known saying of mine and how I sign books. The craft has been a source of great enjoyment for me for over 60 years and I try to encourage others to enjoy it too. It is a hobby for most of us, often relief from something else, where you can relax. There are many other things associated with beekeeping such as natural history, where you can learn about plants and trees and many other forms of wildlife around or inside a hive. It is sometimes surprising what you can find under a hive roof if you look, but many just throw it on the ground.

I have seen some teachers and those in influential positions insist that all beekeepers should do things “by the book” and tick boxes when done. We used to have one in my area, who strictly followed the “official line” of their one favourite author, where I often heard them say “you must do it this way or that way and you are a jolly bad beekeeper if you don’t”! In my view, all this does is get beekeepers to do as they are told, so learning by rote, rather than learn about bees and working with them, if it doesn’t put them off. Beekeeping shouldn’t be a chore.

In the past, there were many County Beekeeping Instructors (CBIs) who were employed by county councils to teach beekeeping. They were interviewed for the post and were a high standard. Since their demise during the cost cutting phase, most teaching is now done by BKAs at local level by unpaid volunteers. There is no help or training for beekeepers to teach the craft, it’s often whoever is available or willing to do it, usually with no selection procedure. This, and a shortage of experienced beekeepers, sometimes means that willing, but inexperienced people, are often pressed into service who are probably unprepared. Instead of criticising them, as sometimes happens, we should applaud them and provide good, sound information and resources to help them, not only to teach, but to learn themselves.

This toolkit has been developed to help teachers, not only with theory and practical elements, but presentation and demonstrating. We all have our own ways of doing things and they should be encouraged, not for everyone to be the same, but there may be issues we all have to deal with occasionally that are outside beekeeping, such as personality clashes.

Teachers should understand that beekeeping is a very diverse topic, often needing diverse methods of teaching. For most beekeepers, it is a hobby they want to enjoy, not a work situation where they have a specific job they are trained for and are paid to perform it. People enter the craft for many different reasons, with different lifestyles, interests and abilities. Some start by accident, often where they are presented with an unexpected opportunity, such as a swarm settling in their garden or are gifted bees and equipment, others may have done a lot of research, handled bees on several occasions, then carefully planned their entry. There is an increasing number who want to “save the bees” or are “box tickers”, some having the “I want, I want and I want it now” mentality. All are often dismissed or criticised, when perhaps it may be better to offer help and guidance.

Beekeepers and their backgrounds have changed over the last half century or so. In the past, the craft was populated by a high proportion of rural folk who worked on the land in some way. They were practical people, often on low incomes, who learnt by copying others, or, as they were often dealing with livestock, could work out what to do with bees. The modern beekeeper may not be so practical and is used to training from a structured programme, possibly with a certificate or qualifications, together with much more information. Beekeepers are faced with many more problems than those in the past, such as varroa, health and safety and legislation. Those you teach will learn in different ways, at different rates and favour different topics. A “standard method” probably won’t suit everyone, so I suggest a little flexibility. It’s helpful to know a little about those you are teaching, so you can teach in the way that suits them best.

There are several ways of teaching and there is no intention in the toolkit to promote any particular methods, just to provide resources and make what we hope are sensible comments and suggestions that might be worth considering for inclusion in your current material. To avoid a lot of initial reading, in some instances, there is a summary with links to more substantial information.

Roger Patterson.

Teaching material and presenting it

It is important that what you teach is good and sound. There may be a temptation, perhaps by less experienced teachers, to simply copy and paste from elsewhere, assuming it is reliable, especially if the same or similar is in several places. The problem with that is that others have done the same, sometimes changing words to make it look original, but in doing so may change the meaning slightly, or miss out something important. If possible, try to teach from your own knowledge and experience. There are a lot of teachers who teach what others know and they are easily spotted by reasonably experienced beekeepers.

Of course, there will be topics the teacher has little or no experience of. To help with that, throughout this toolkit, we have suggested suitable material that has been assessed by experienced beekeepers as suitable for the UK and Ireland. This short article is to offer a little advice about material to enhance your presentations and guidance on delivering them to small groups.

There is a well-known saying “death by PowerPoint” that keeps being trotted out, mainly from people with nothing positive to say about anything. I agree that PowerPoint can be dull, excessively long and send everyone, including the presenter to sleep, but I think it’s a very useful tool that can be used in several ways for indoor meetings, with many features that if used well can be a great asset in teaching beekeeping. We all have different views of a presentation and its effectiveness and what the audience needs. I tend to use PowerPoint a lot for my presentations, where I give practical beekeeping information. I have short bullet points that prompt discussion with plenty of photographs. I dislike a lot of text the presenter reads out and I sympathise with some, especially scientist, who need to use a lot of graphs to give data.

Some of my presentations are mainly photographs, with arrows or circles to point out various things on the screen. It’s often surprising how something like a photo of a frame of bees or brood can provide several things to talk about.

Be careful if you lift items such as images and diagrams from the internet. They may be subject to copyright or royalties that aren’t obvious. All sorts of things happen, such as images with the copyright owner being cropped off can be displayed on a website.

Royalties can be very expensive if material is used without payment. Items such as photographs are placed with agencies who sell them to users. If they are subsequently copied, they may be subject to further payment. I am aware of a demand for £6000, because a picture was copied and placed on a BKA website three years earlier. The agency was very aggressive and only backed down if it was removed within 4 hours. To avoid any expensive trouble, make sure your material is from a known source, such as your own members or copyright/royalty free. There is plenty available, but make a note where it came from and credit the source.

AI is becoming a major part of modern life where it is very easy to generate articles and presentations, but remember that it will only use material that is already on the internet, that may not be appropriate for your situation. If you source material you don’t have much knowledge of, you may be “advising” beekeepers incorrectly and you may be asked questions you may not have answers for.

Roger Patterson.

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.