Our classes often fill up 1-2 weeks before class date,
we strongly recommend you sign up early!
Class Refund Policy
Cancellations must be made seven days in advance in order to receive a full refund. Refunds are not given for classes canceled less than seven days ahead; however, you can always send a friend in your place.
Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping
January 12, 2020 – Sold out!!
February 9, 2020 – Sold out!!
Cost: $40
Honeybees are a joy to keep in the backyard simply for their buzzing presence and, on hot days, the smell of honey, wafting through the air within ten feet of the hive. They increase pollination in your yard and therefore increase your yields from fruit trees and vegetables. You may also harvest honey from the hive. Learn what you need to know to feel ready to have a Langstroth backyard beehive – how to get bees, what equipment you need, where to put the hive, what the bees need, and what you need to learn/do to keep your bees healthy. There will be local honey to try!
Get Tickets for Jan 12!
Get Tickets for Feb 9!
Everything You Need to Know About Backyard Chickens
February 9, 2020
Cost: $40
From setting up a brooder for baby chicks to the essentials of water, feed, and coop requirements for a thriving backyard flock, this class will prepare you for what you need to know! We will go over many topics for setting up and keeping your chickens happy and healthy including: planning your coop, protecting against predators, winter time care, best breeds, nutrition, and optimum egg production.
This class is recommended for folks who are getting chicks this spring.
Cost: $35
Be prepared for the East Bay’s particularly long swarm season. Swarm prevention begins in February and continues through June. This class shows you how to keep ahead of your bees’ expansion and keep their broodnest open, so they don’t swarm. We’ll dive into bee biology and the natural urge for the bees to reproduce (swarm). This class will touch upon organizing your hive (e.g. where to move frames so they get the honey capped quickly, so you don’t have a multitude of uncapped honey), and cover how to catch a swarm.
How to Split Your Beehive: A Three-Part Series
This is a 3-Part series from 6-8pm on these three Sundays:
Feb. 23, March 1, & March 8.
Cost: $95
Splits are complicated. The material will sink in deeper over the three Sundays. We will also have added time to go into questions about your individual hives.
Learn how to work with the bees as they expand in the spring by making successful splits. Splitting your hive is the number one thing you can do to reduce the varroa mite population. It also enables you to have 2-3 hives so you have more flexibility in helping out a weak hive. We will cover how bees make new queens, the timeline of queen mating, and how to make a basic split. This class will go into more details of making splits and nucs, including specific splits that work well, what can go wrong and how to fix it, and which months/timing works best. We will go into detail on a specific split that reduces varroa mites on both sides of the split. In order to make certain splits, you will need to be able to spot your queen, so we will go over tips for learning how to see your queen and how to find her.
This series is for beginners who haven’t made a split yet – we’ll cover simple splits to start out with. This class is also beneficial for beekeepers who have split before and who need tips, tricks, and advice.
Cost: $55
An alternative to the three-part series!
Learn how to work with the bees as they expand in the spring by making successful splits. Splitting your hive is the number one thing you can do to reduce the varroa mite population. It also enables you to have 2-3 hives so you have more flexibility in helping out a weak hive. We will cover how bees make new queens, the timeline of queen mating, and how to make a basic split. This class will go into more details of making splits and nucs, including specific splits that work well, what can go wrong and how to fix it, and which months/timing works best. We will go into detail on a specific split that reduces varroa mites on both sides of the split. In order to make certain splits, you will need to be able to spot your queen, so we will go over tips for learning how to see your queen and how to find her.
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Cost: $40
Mending is a meditative and slow-paced activity to soothe our often-busy lives. This workshop will allow mending beginners to learn the basics and continuing menders to hone their skills and add new embroidery stitches to their repertoire. We will work with the Japanese techniques of visible mending and patching to repair worn clothing and make it ever more personal.
We will provide a variety of fabrics and threads to use for your work during the hands-on portion of the workshop. We will also cover repair of buttonholes and replacement of buttons. You are welcome to bring a beloved item of clothing that needs to be mended to lengthen its life. If you have a sewing kit, do bring it: scissors, needles, pins, cloth scraps welcome as well.
Hive Inspection Class (Beekeeping)
Cost: $35
Learn how to do a thorough inspection of your beehive! We will cover all the tools and how to use them correctly. We will go into a hive and show what everything looks like: eggs, larvae, capped worker/drone brood, and uncapped & capped honey. You’ll learn how to assess if your hive is the right size for the amount of bees and if you have a fertile, laying queen. Perhaps most important, you will learn what not to do, as it riles the bees, and instead how to keep them calm and mellow. Rainy or cold weather will postpone this class.
If you are a new beekeeper, we recommend you take this class along with the Intro to Backyard Beekeeping and the Year Round Varroa Mite Managment classes.
Honeybee Behavior: Why Do My Bees Do What They Do?
Cost: $40
Pets like dogs and cats are mammals like humans and easier for us to understand. The gap between honeybee behavior and humans is much greater. We tend to anthropomorphize bees which leads to them constantly surprising us, as they are insects, not humans. Learn about honeybee biology and behavior so you can better anticipate what they are doing in their hive. We will cover things like how bee orient/navigate, how/why the hive “decides” to swarm or make a new queen, and what a bee does when it’s sick or going to die. We will directly relate these to beekeeping in the Bay Area climate and how you can better manage your hive with this knowledge.
Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping
Cost: $40
Honeybees are a joy to keep in the backyard simply for their buzzing presence and, on hot days, the smell of honey, wafting through the air within ten feet of the hive. They increase pollination in your yard and therefore increase your yields from fruit trees and vegetables. You may also harvest honey from the hive. Learn what you need to know to feel ready to have a Langstroth backyard beehive – how to get bees, what equipment you need, where to put the hive, what the bees need, and what you need to learn/do to keep your bees healthy. There will be local honey to try!
Spring Management of Your Beehives
Cost: $35
Learn how to work with the bees natural growth in spring (February – June) and keep your hive healthy. Learn what the bees are focused on in spring, so you can work with their natural instincts. Each spring is different in terms of the amount of rain and how cold/warm it is. We will learn how each kind of weather influences the bee’s behavior, so you can be prepared for any kind of spring. We will cover swarm prevention, plus talk about getting wax drawn-out and honey production.
Spring is the prime time to split your hive. We recommend you also take our Splitting Your Hive class.
Year Round Varroa Mite & Virus Management: Keeping Your Hive Healthy
Cost: $35
Learn what to do each season to keep mite levels low and your bees thriving. It is each beekeeper’s responsibility to keep their mites low, as it means lower mite & virus levels for all the surrounding hives (mites/viruses transfer easily between hives). The instructor will demonstrate detection and preventative measures, so you will be prepared to do it in your own hive in the next couple months. We will cover the sugar roll test, organic treatment methods like drone comb frames, oxalic & formic acid treatment, and broodless periods/splitting your hive. Taking care of mites will allow your bees to overwinter smoothly and live multiple years.
Cost: $75
Make mead that is drinkable in one month! Traditional meads take a year (or more) to age and be drinkable, but meads can be made much faster. This process allows you to experiment with small batches, get results quickly, and repeat with a big batch of a particularly tasty recipe or honey. You will learn about yeast, what equipment you need, how to prepare must (unfermented mead), what flavors work well together, fermentation, sanitation, how to use a hydrometer and bottling. There will be a tasting of some local meads and then will make batches of mead in class to take home to ferment! Be warned that making meads faster requires a more complicated recipe than traditional mead and more cooking science understanding, but this class is still accessible for beginners. The quick, reliable results are well worth the effort.
The class cost of $75 includes the cost of the equipment you need to make mead (1-gallon glass carboy, airlock, hydrometer), which you will get to take home with you to reuse for future batches. It also includes the cost of enough yeast for your first batch, which is critical for the mead making process. It does not include honey. You need to bring a quart of your own liquid honey (purchased or from your own bees, not crystalized) with you to the class, and then you will be able to make your first batch of mead during the class.
If you would like to OPT OUT of the mead making supplies for a reduced ($25 off) ticket price, please let us know ASAP. We order supplies before the class date and don’t want to order more than we need.
Herbs for Resiliency: Tonics for Rest, Digestion and Vitality
Cost: $45
In these times many folks experience chronic stress which can show up in digestion, sleep patterns, fatigue and anxiety. In this hands-on class we’ll discuss 10 plants that are easy to access in the Bay Area, taste teas and tinctures that help to strengthen the mind, body and spirit, and create an herbal tea mix to take home for use in your daily life. This workshop is a good introduction for those who are new to herbalism, or a helpful class for those who are familiar with herbal medicines but want to deepen their resources for supporting themselves and their communities.
April 18, 2020
There are 2 classes that day:
10:00 am
2:00 pm
Cost: $35
Learn how to do a thorough inspection of your beehive! We will cover all the tools and how to use them correctly. We will go into a hive and show what everything looks like: eggs, larvae, capped worker/drone brood, and uncapped & capped honey. You’ll learn how to assess if your hive is the right size for the amount of bees and if you have a fertile, laying queen. Perhaps most important, you will learn what not to do, as it riles the bees, and instead how to keep them calm and mellow. Rainy or cold weather will postpone this class.
If you are a new beekeeper, we recommend you take this class along with the Intro to Backyard Beekeeping and the Year Round Varroa Mite Management classes.
Get Tickets for April 18 at 10:00 am!
Get Tickets for April 18 at 2:00 pm!
Year Round Varroa Mite & Virus Management: Keeping Your Hive Healthy
Cost: $35
Learn what to do each season to keep mite levels low and your bees thriving. It is each beekeeper’s responsibility to keep their mites low, as it means lower mite & virus levels for all the surrounding hives (mites/viruses transfer easily between hives). The instructor will demonstrate detection and preventative measures, so you will be prepared to do it in your own hive in the next couple months. We will cover the sugar roll test, organic treatment methods like drone comb frames, oxalic & formic acid treatment, and broodless periods/splitting your hive. Taking care of mites will allow your bees to overwinter smoothly and live multiple years.
Our classes often fill up 1-2 weeks before class date, we strongly recommend you sign up early!
Click the title, date or “Get Tickets!” link for tickets.
Class Refund Policy
Cancellations must be made seven days in advance in order to receive a full refund. Refunds are not given for classes canceled less than seven days ahead; however, you can always send a friend in your place.
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