Jembella Farm: January Bee-keeping Workshop

Monday, 23 January 2017

January Bee-keeping Workshop

Our final Bee-keeping workshop for this season. Morning tea on the verandah.

A class of eleven. Lots of great questions and good discussions. The morning part of the day is spent in the shearing shed learning about the equipment and how to use it.

Lunch and morning tea breaks are great for networking and discussions among the participants. A wander of the gardens, and meeting the pigs, chooks and the rest of the menagerie is a must too.

After lunch we got hands-on with bees; checking the hives, finding the Queens, and uniting hives together.

Brian from Gawler.

People traveled from far and wide to attend.

Sara drove from Watervale, near Clare.
Sue and her partner Pete traveled two hours from Jabuk, in the Mallee region of South Australia.
Both of these delightful ladies are blog readers, so it was both overwhelming and humbling to meet them. Of course we clicked immediately, as we felt like we already knew each other.

Sue and Pete, from Jabuk.

Alan loves people so he was all smiles.

The bloke who makes it all possible. How he manages to talk and impart his wisdom all day, amazes me. We work as a team, but he does most of the talking. I'm not so good at that because I get all talked out after a few hours, and then can't string two words together..!!
Each of us have our strong and weak points, so I guess we compliment each other. I do the behind the scenes stuff; marketing, bookings and financials, the food (morning tea and lunch), and general assistant facilitator.
Brian is the bee keeping Guru. He sets up the classroom areas, prepares the projects, and speaks all day.
Yesterday's session ran well overtime, but no one seemed to mind staying until 5.30pm.
Roberta and John from Marananga are in the background, and oh my goodness, what beautiful people they are. In fact, we had another wonderful group yesterday and made even MORE new friends.
So it's a wrap! The next workshops will start up again in October, when the next bee season gets under way.
Cheers, and thanks for popping in to this little blog.
XX

6 comments:

Barbara23 January 2017 at 17:57
There's a Beehive Road in Jabuk! Coincidence?
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Meg23 January 2017 at 19:57
How lovely to meet new people so interested in bee-keeping, Sally. While it must be lots of work getting everything ready for your workshops, it must be so nice to pass on knowledge and enthuse people about bees. Morning tea looks delicious by the way! Meg:)
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Emma Christian23 January 2017 at 22:42
Oh look at dear Alan there just loving being in the centre of it all! haha! Gosh he is a sweet boy!

xx
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Nanna Chel23 January 2017 at 22:54
You certainly do keep busy on your farm, Sally. I haven't seen many bees around here lately but did come across a blue banded bee which made me very excited. I need to get my husband to build a yard to keep the chooks in so that my plants get a chance to flower and attract the bees.
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Phil Poggeaux26 January 2017 at 09:35
I would like to see more of Alan too. What a great fella :-)
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Bocoyote23 December 2023 at 09:41
Nice bllog
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About Us

Whether you're living in an apartment, in a house in the suburbs or on acres, you can live frugally and sustainably. There are many things you can do to save money, eat ethically and healthily, reduce waste and live an enriched life.
We are Sally and Brian and we live in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in a 100 year old house on sixteen acres with 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives.
Our way of life takes team work and dedication, but over the years we've learned to be more productive without seeming to put in quite so much effort. We've learned through making mistakes and taking a different approach to what the conventional ways would be. Still learning every day and constantly researching old and new methods, we believe that our lives are greatly enriched, we are healthier and we couldn't imagine any other way of life.
Considered to be living The Good Life, people love to visit us on our small farm to learn about our simple living philosophy.

Why do we do it?
Our love of good food, concern for our health and respect for all animals. The further we got into living on the land the more aware we became that most of the standard practices of growing food were not satisfactory. We couldn't eat with a clear conscience.
Milk from sad cows, pasteurized and homogenized into white liquid. Meat from distressed, hormone and antibiotic pumped livestock. Vegetables and fruits grown and sprayed with chemicals. What to do? Grow our own!
Slowly we grew our knowledge and took one step at a time, becoming proficient in one skill before moving on to the next. The learning curves were steep. We fell over and got back up again. There has been some derision and criticism of our approach from a few, but that's life when you swim against the tide.
If we are not the "norm" then so be it. There is nothing "normal" about growth hormones fed to beef, anti-biotics and chemicals fed routinely to chickens, cruelty and disrespect for farmed animals, meals in a box, GM foods, strawberries and tomatoes in winter.
Thankfully the World is waking up to cleaner and more ethical food. We didn't know back then that Organics and Bio-dynamics would become the "new black". The tide is turning and our swimming is becoming easier.