Hi Cindi. John Gates, Jacquie Bunse, and Stephen Parnall also spoke at the class I took. Forgot to mention them. We also did labs for disease identification and a dissecting anatomy class. Living in Anchorage, I usually travel back to upstate New York in March for a few weeks to make some backyard maple syrup where I grew up, and the Bee Master's class was at the right time and on the way, so I stopped in for it. I heard Mark Winston is doing other things now, but didn't know that the beekeeping curriculum has been shut down. Real Shame. Is the Bee Master's class going to continue every two year? My understanding was that for Canadians to become bee inspectors, they need to undergo training and a course like the Bee Master's course covers the training requirement. Is that true?
We didn't actually do any labs for disease ident and any dissection, too bad though, that would be have been very interesting.
As a requirement to become an inspector, I would certainly expect training and maybe a course like the Beemasters course. But to be honest with you. I have been keeping bees for almost three years. I study extensively, every day, have taken courses and courses and more courses. Still, I would not consider myself even close with knowledge to qualify as a bee inspector. Not to underestimate my knowledge, but honestly, if I thought that a bee inspector only had as much training/experience as myself, I would not want them inspecting my bees. This is exactly how I feel. I do not know how much training an inspector would require. Maybe my expectations of knowledge are just too high, but that is my story -- and I'm stickin' to it.
I do not know if the Beemasters Short Course is going to continue or not. Just because the department has closed down at SFU does not mean the course could not be still offered. It would be too bad if they did not offer it. I could not ever figure out why it was only offered every two years though, that does not make sense. The final day of the course, a questionnaire was presented to offer suggestions for improvement of the curriculum, so it gave me an impression that it may continue. I indicated it should be held yearly.
Something that I found during that course that caused me great distress was this. When I enrolled in the course, a prerequisite was a knowledge of beekeeping. Can't remember how much knowledge. But this class was not for the beginner in the field. I myself, having already taken many courses, and had almost 2 years of hands-on experience with the bees, I found the material in this course very very deep. Alot of it was very difficult to absorb, very difficult. I met several individuals taking this course that had absolutely zero experience with bees, did not keep bees, and were just beginning to study about bees. This was totally wrong that they should have been allowed to enroll in this extremely deep course. I spoke with some of these poor people on the last day and they were completely and absolutely overwhelmed and very sad actually. They felt they had absolutely no clue about what had gone on for those 5 days, and I felt awful for them. They had spent a lot of money on this course, spent a lot of time and should never ever have taken it. That was tragic in my eyes. Because at the same time, I remember one of the them telling me that she was so overwhelmed now, that she didn't think that she wanted to keep bees. This was a wrong doing and it makes me mad. I imparted that on my written feedback about the course and its content. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The participants should have been screened to access their level of beekeeping experience, for their own good, and it was not a doubt in my mind, a total waste of money for them -- and time. Why this was not done, bugs the crap out of me, and obviously, still does!!! I can become very opinionated about stuff.
There was no American participants in the course I took. There was only people from one side of Canada to the other, that was it. Very diversified group and a bunch of great souls, enjoyed all of it, especially talking about beekeeping in different areas. It was fun, gruelling, long days, but I have a great Husband who made our supper for me each day, all I had to do was go to school and have lots of this stuff called fun, :) :) :) Beautiful day, beautiful life. Cindi
Topic: Bee Master's Short Course - Canada (Read 2916 times)