The Jersey Beekeepers’ Association is committed to ensuring that members have the knowledge and skills to properly care for their colonies.

Keeping bees responsibly requires a large range of knowledge and skills. It is definitely not a case of placing a hive at the bottom of the garden and expecting to take off honey at the end of the season!

Having the right skills is important for the recognition and control of swarms and diseases and sudden colony die off, for example. Recently added are the skills required to control predation by Asian Hornets.

We all want healthy and happy bees and the Jersey Beekeepers Association help provide this to members by;

1. Running an ‘Introduction to beekeeping course’ every February and March. This involves a series of theory and practical modules for people who are thinking about keeping bees.

2. The above will not make you a qualified beekeeper and is supported during the season by mentoring from experienced members.

3. After one year of beekeeping on their own, members can sit the Bee Basic Assessment (a British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) assessment), this is rather like the ‘driving test for bees’. Basic Assessment | British Beekeepers Association (bbka.org.uk)

4. Members can also take further BBKA Module Assessments and study groups are arranged to facilitate this through joint learning. Examinations & Assessments | British Beekeepers Association (bbka.org.uk)

5. Members are also very fortunate to benefit from lectures given by experienced visiting Master Beekeepers and sessions run by members at the association’s bee field. These always involve a useful Q&A and are an excellent source of detailed knowledge.

6. And for the winter nights, the Association has a large library of beekeeping books.

We also recognises that it is useful to sow seeds of interest in beekeeping in the wider public and our young ‘future’ beekeepers. Our members are always on hand at country shows to talk about our bees and often run school visits at the bee field. To practically demonstrate that members have put all the knowledge into practice, then there is the Association’s annual honey show held in October. And in 2024, the Association was very honoured to receive the British Beekeeper’s Award for the most passes for the Bee Health Assessment module!