The Living Classroom in Bingara was the site for a very unusual event in December 2016. Elizabeth Frost from the Tocal Agricultural College conducted a two day session to deliver the nationally accredited course “Queen Bee Breeding” of European Honey Bees.
Finding a future queen: Participants learn how to breed Queen bees.
There were fourteen beekeepers in attendance from all around the country. Two had travelled from Perth WA, one from SE Queensland, one from Griffith NSW and the rest from the New England, the North Coast, the Central Coast and the Sydney Region.
The Living Classroom was considered to be an excellent location at which to stage this program and many of the participants will be back at TLC in February to study Artificial Insemination of Queen Bees.
Elizabeth was very impressed by the site and the facilities there. “These courses are geared towards all scale of bee keeping, from recreational ‘two-hive’ keepers to those with thousands of hives and with major commercial enterprises.
“The Queen Bee Breeding Course allows students to practise their skill in finding grafting larvae for queen rearing and to gain the knowledge necessary to manage queen bee production for personal use or as a business,” Elizabeth explained.
“Queen Bees are thought of as the ‘engine’ of a bee hive. The queen is the mother of up to around 60,000 worker bees within the hive. “The queen’s health and breeding is important for the hive to thrive and be productive for honey production and pollination contracts,” she added.
More information about these courses is available through the Department of Primary Industries or by contacting Elizabeth at M: 0437 731 273, or Email: elizabeth.frost@dpi.nsw.gov.au
