We're sorry but this course is now FULL: please contact us to join the waiting list for this course or have a look at our next Beekeeping course: Sydney: Feb 2011
A practical workshop on keeping honeybees in cities and suburban areas. Bees are essential city pollinators, providing fertility for all where we need it most. Urban Beekeeping ensures a healthy and abundant environment for all residents, is easy and safe to do, inexpensive to set up and perhaps best of all, provides you with raw, local honey! Yum.
Is it wise to invite bees into the city limits? Neighbors might have something to say when they see a full-blown hive on an adjacent rooftop or in a neighbor's backyard. But to that Andrew Coté, a 4th-generation city beekeeper, echoes the familiar wisdom: "Honeybees are not interested in you. They're interested in nectar."
"Small scale keepers tend to stress their colonies less," he says, "and we certainly want to encourage that." Less stress means healthier bees, and healthier bees mean healthier green spaces. Green roof gardens, community vegetable plots—even windowsill and fire escape flowerpots "can certainly be bolstered [by] having more honeybees,"
"Bees take care of themselves," he adds. "They're remarkable pets in that way… [and] they're a lot less expensive than a cat." Beekeeping is a pastime surprisingly well suited for the city - "It's a type of gardening people can do without a garden," he says. " And really, the bees do most of the work." - GreenSage, May/June 2009
Join us as we un-ravel the surprisingly simple mystery of how to keep bees in the city. During this weekend you will benefit from a range of beekeepers with varied stories and expertise: on small-scale, urban hives, beekeeping in the Sydney basin and also a larger scale professional beekeeper, complete with bees. Together our guest teachers will take you through how to set up, take care of, and enjoy the beekeeping experience.
You will learn the ins and outs of beekeeping in urban areas and beekeeping in general, and leave this course all ready to take the plunge of keeping your own bees!
Topics include:
Honeybees 101: species and behaviour- How a bee colony works
- How a hive works
- Getting set up for beekeeping - tools and equipment
- Situating hives in urban areas - backyards + rooftops
- Introducing your bees to the hive
- Ensuring the ongoing health of your colony
- Dealing with potential swarms
Honey collecting, extraction + processing on a small scale
- Strategies for safe and successful beekeeping within a neighbourhood
- Forms required for keeping bees in urban areas
- Successful beekeeping with little kids
- Setting up a urban beekeeping co-op to share resources and equipment
- Beekeeping for community gardens
Included in your course
Your course fee includes comprehensive notes, copies of the necessary forms needed to become an urban beekeeper in NSW as well as tea, coffee and honey-themed delights from Milkwood Farm during the course.
We will also be partnering with a beekeeping supplier to provide course participants with all the pieces for your first hive (or three) at a sizable discount. At the end of the course you will be issued with a certificate of completion from Milkwood Permaculture.
We are always happy to offer community, pensioner and unwaged discounts where we can, to make Milkwood Permaculture courses accessible to everyone. Please contact us for more information.
Our Sydney course venue is Alexandria Park Community Centre, set in the grounds of Alexandria Community School, on the corner of Park Road and Power Avenue. This amazing place has multiple thriving community gardens, school gardens, a bush tucker garden and outdoor classroom learning areas. Venue MAP.
Getting there by Train: The venue is 15 minutes walk from Redfern Station. Take the Gibbons St exit and continue south. Gibbons St will become Wyndham St, and soon you will reach Alexandria Park on your right. Cut through the park to the corner of Park Rd and Power Avenue, and there you are. Cityrail website.
Getting there by Bus: The 370 and 355 bus routes run along McEvoy St, one block from the venue. Sydney Buses website.
Parking: There is ample street parking around the school.
Plan your trip to Alexandria Park Community Centre with the interactive map below:
View MPC Sydney Course Venue 2010 in a larger map
