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Courses

At Ballarat Regional Beekeepers we offer several courses and some opportunities for hands-on training, often called ‘Open Hives’. We take interested people and club members

  • through the steps of deciding whether beekeeping is for them to
  • a basic but broad introductory course in the craft of beekeeping to
  • workshops focussed on one or two aspects of beekeeping, such as identifying and dealing with pests and diseases and hive management techniques – using Long Lang or Flow Hives, hive inspections, requeening, extracting honey, packing our hives down for winter and manipulating frames.

We use the Try Booking platform for our courses which we advertise here and on Facebook as well. In courses where we offer a $40 discount to members, please note that our annual club membership is $40 per person ($60 a family)…… so you could join as well as sign up for a course as a new member!

2 Bee or not 2 Bee

This 2 hour course is for absolute beginners who are considering whether bee keeping is for them. Discussing PPE equipment and safety, start-up costs and a Q and A session. It's also a fantastic opportunity to observe bees in a hive and examine frames of brood and stores.

Introduction to Beekeeping

This 4.5 hour course will teach you about bee biology, setting up and managing your first hive/s, Biosecurity and dealing with bee diseases, seasonal beekeeping tasks and much more. It’s for beginners as well as those who have begun their beekeeping journey and need to know more. Guided by two experienced beekeepers, you can observe and discuss live bees at work in ‘open hive’ situations (weather -dependent of course) A great foundation upon which to start or enrich your beekeeping journey

Healthy Bees @ BRB

Running over two sessions, we first learn to identify pests and diseases we may encounter in the hive and how to manage them. This is followed up by a practical hands-on hive experience where we look at hive health and strength, discuss problems found and learn to take larval smears. This is so we can return to our own apiaries to take a larval smear to send to a pathology laboratory to test for EFB or AFB. (Members only – Lab testing costs subsidised by the club)

Open Hives

These 2 hour experiences are conducted in a Beekeeper’s apiary and usually have a Committee member or Area Leader guiding the targeted experience. Participants are able to watch a beekeeper demonstrating how to manage a specific task as mentioned above. It’s usually a great time for questions. Attendance at Open hives is free and is for members only.

Course Name/Title Maximum Attendees Course Date Member Cost Public Cost Actions
Introduction to Beekeeping 6 20 September 2025
Start at: 10:00am 		$180.00 $220.00
2 Bee or not 2 Bee 8 21 September 2025
Start at: 1:00pm 		$20.00 $50.00