Note: 2025 Course is now fully subscribed
Fife Beekeepers Association (FBA) has recently opened its own training apiary to encourage members and those wishing to take up beekeeping as a hobby to be able to participate in various theoretical and practical courses throughout the beekeeping year. It is vital that the skills and experiences are passed down to new beekeepers, but most importantly to the Association is that beekeeping is about having fun whilst you learn.
Beekeeping involves a significant investment in time and money. Before undertaking your new hobby, it is strongly recommended that you attend a taster session to understand what will be required to successfully manage your own colonies. It will allow you the opportunity to get up ‘close and personal’ with the honey bees and give you the feeling and excitement of lifting the roof off the hive to observe and examine them. A Taster session is currently priced at £20 per person (18 years +) and lasts for approximately 2 hours. A Junior member (under 18 years of age) is £5 per person.
If you decide that beekeeping is for you and you want to put your name forward to attend the FBA Basic Beekeepers Course, then you simply apply to become a member of the Association and once accepted, complete the online form. Demand for places is normally very high and the Association unfortunately has to limit the number of spaces to 12 to ensure everyone is correctly mentored. Priority will be given to those attending the taster session. The course will follow the Scottish Beekeepers Association practical basic beekeeping syllabus to ensure beginners are well placed to sit this examination if they wish to do so.
The FBA Beginners Course includes six lessons, normally about 2 hours each and will cover:
1. Botanicals and Pollination
- Understanding of beekeeping calendar’s link to forage availability
- Recognising key forage – both plants and trees – for pollen and nectar and also propolis and resin, not forgetting water.
- Relate this to how to choose a site for your apiary
- Keep a forage diary – lead into practical checking of stores, hefting hives – if and what to feed etc.
2. Biology – using practical microscopy/virtual hive for illustration/photos
- Understanding life cycle of all 3 bees, ensure ability to recognise them
- Recognise cells with eggs/larvae/capped brood, confidently
- Basic biology (complete bee picture) inc pheromones and glands – 6,5,4,3,2,1
- Bee behaviours and organisation in the colony
3. Apiary, Equipment and Health & Hygiene
- Characteristics of apiary;
- Siting – forage, light, water, public safety, accessibility
- Build brood box frames for extending Assoc’s hives
- Equipment – hive tool, smoker (fuel to burn), suit, gloves, brush/feather, boots
- H&H – clean equipment/clothes, treatments timeously (& recorded!) IPM, sting
4. First Inspection, spring feeding
- Use equipment – suit correctly worn, smoker effectively lit
- Open a hive – observation, use of smoker, manipulation of frames, observation
- Action to take – feed or not to feed, expand hive, check varroa/health etc
- Recording – importance and options of how and why to do it
- Frame building – brood and supers
5. Full Inspection, FEDSS esp varroa
- Correct use of equipment, inc smoker skills!
- Brood frame arrangement, stores of honey and pollen, look for hatching bees
- Check on queen – layer, marked, mark some drones
- Check all cell types present – drone cells as well as workers and possibly Queen cups/cells
- healthy build up of hive, more frame building.
6. Swarming and Summer markers
- swarm prevention/control – remove 1 out of 3, plan timing for hive division
- super development – frame building
- extraction/clean-up/autumn prep – forward look
The first part of each lesson will be indoors and be about 45 minutes. After this, there will be time to ask questions over a cup of tea / coffee (possibly even a biscuit or a piece of cake!) before starting on a 45 minute practical. There are many tasks that the beekeeper needs to be prepared for and this part will concentrate on these i.e. building frames, building hive parts, practicing recording observations, etc. There will also be some fun quiz sessions to reinforce learning and there will be books in the library that can be borrowed between sessions.
The cost of the 2025 beginners course will be £220, including loan of a beesuit (£25) and a copy of Haynes Bee Manual (£15). For those who attended the Taster Day, there will be a refund of £20. For those aged under 18, the cost of the course (incl. beesuit and manual) will be £110.
The FBA will be holding weekly apiary sessions from April to October for which there will be no charge and these will cover the costs of feed and treatments until the beginners have moved their bees out to their own apiary.
In 2026, expenses incurred by the beginners will be their FBA membership fee, Scottish Beekeeping Association membership fee (only if they wish to sit their basic beekeeping practical exam) and £175 for a nucleus of bees (which they will have tended through summer and winter) if they wish to purchase them from the FBA (optional for the individual).