What

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Whats the Buzz atWilson Central FFA?
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Why bees?

• Bees are agriculture at its most basic
• Bees are pollinators
• Our diet would be bland and dull without the hard
  working honey bees

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Why Bees?

• By teaching beekeeping in schools we encourage a
  new generation to keep bees
• Why is this so important?
• From winter of 2006 2011 annual honey bee
  losses averaged 33!
• This means we better start breeding and keeping
  bees in order to continue to enjoy their
  benefits.

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What can you teach by teaching Beekeeping?

• Ag Mechanics building hives
• Land selection and preparation creating your
  apiary
• Entomology Bees 101
• Agriculture Processing collecting and bottling
  honey
• Agriculture Sales Marketing labeling,
  advertising, and selling honey and other products

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What about SAE?

• Beekeeping gives students an opportunity to
  develop unique SAEs, especially those that need
  to use the school resources/labs to conduct their
  SAE

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Bees make us look good!

• Positive publicity for our program, school,
  district, and especially for FFA
• Newspaper television coverage
• Director of Schools board
• Leadership Wilson
• Youth Leadership Wilson
• Wilson County Fair

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Other benefits of bees

• New fundraiser honey products
• Great for programs like ours that has no land or
  facilities for expansion.
• Makes our program (your program) unique, while
  benefiting agriculture.
• Win-Win!

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Bees 101

• Bee society is unique and sets an example for
  humans
• In the world of the honey bee if you dont or
  wont work you die. Period
• There are only three types of bees the queen,
  workers, and drones

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Her majesty. . . The Queen

• Only one queen per hive
• A hive will die without a queen
• Lives longer than the other bees, with 2 or more
  years being possible
• She is the single largest bee in the colony
• She is protected and cared for by the workers who
  meet her every need

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The Queen

• Develops from egg to queen in 16 days
• Is fed a rich supply of royal jelly (secreted
  from glands in the heads of workers) until she
  emerges from her cell
• Takes a virgin flight and mates with drones in a
  drone cloud in the air
• She only leaves the hive once or twice in her
  life in order to mate

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The Queen

• Can be overthrown
• It is called supersedure
• The colony will choose to re-queen its self by
  supersedure when the current queen is old or
  ailing and the colony detects that she is not
  laying prolifically
• If more than one queen emerges from queen cells,
  they will fight to the death
• There can only be one queen

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Noble Workers

• Literally work themselves to death with a
  lifespan of only six weeks during the active
  season and four to eight months during the less
  active winter months
• Are all females
• Smallest bees in the hive

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Workers

• Brilliant example of teamwork
• Are in compulsory cooperation in the hive
• Duties change as a worker ages housekeeper
  undertaker nursery worker queen attendant
  forager fanner architect and builder guard
  field worker and finally a noble death after
  literally working themselves to death.

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Woeful Drones

• The only males
• Smallest population in the hive
• He cannot do any work
• The hive keeps them around and takes care of them
  in case they are needed for mating
• Only purpose is to mate
• Mate once. . . Then die
• Kicked out in the winter to die

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Apiary site selection

• Face southeast so that the morning sun wakes and
  warms them early to begin their work day
• Easily accessible with some wind protection in
  dappled sunlight, not direct with good
  ventilation level on firm, dry ground.
• Far enough away from school yet close enough

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Seasons with bees

• Bees work on days that the temp is above 55
  degrees ( or -)
• When nectar flows pollen abounds bees are in
  Heaven!
• If the weather gets dry, bees must be fed. Sugar
  water, much like hummingbirds
• Honey is collected in Aug/Sept, depending on your
  hives/weather/etc
• Winter is dormancy, they kick out the drones and
  form a bee clump to stay warm eating honey

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So, how did we start. . .

• Local beekeepers approached Director of Schools,
  a former beekeeper
• He called Pam Walker and said I choose you to
  start this program
• Community mentors got on board
• Planed a budget and timeframe
• Sent to Director approved by Board
• Got vendor approval placed orders

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Include in budget

• Determine how many hives, what size, how deep,
  etc.
• Include costs for hives cheaper if you assemble
• Wax tools suits to outfit a class in various
  sizes gloves smokers books sugar
  bees/with queen
• Apiary site prep fence

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Our Budget

• We started with 6 hives 3 Italian 3 Russian
• Our start up budget was 6,000
• We included EVERYTHING we thought we would need
  figuring we would receive less than we asked for,
  but we received the total amount requested from
  the county

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Actual Costs, for a class of 30 and 6 hives

• Supplies to build hives 936.00
• Other supplies 1,181.00
• Jackets/gloves 2,099.00
• Sugar (feed) 300.00
• Bees 551.00
• UT Books 162.00
• Apiary Set-Up 395.00
• Initial Costs 5,924.00
• Labels 135.00

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Other Considerations

• L I A B I L I T Y
• Meeting with county attorney to discuss a release
  of liability for each student to sign
• Worked with school nurse on medical releases
• Special considerations paperwork for students
  with Epi-pens

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Where to put it in the curriculum?

• We chose Small Animal Care as the initial class
  because all others were freshmen
• Then Honors Agriscience (best class)
• Then Wildlife Management
• Thursdays are Bee Days mentors come every
  Thursday to work with class
• Start with Bees 101 train before taking to
  apiary

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Timeline

• Budget and initial order established in early
  fall
• Order bees by October
• Get all hive bodies, supers, frames, etc
  assembled in the fall
• Get apiary set up
• Train students how to do and what to do
• Expect bees around Easter
• Enjoy your new hobby bees are the bomb!

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Results

• Community awareness and appreciation of our
  program
• Positive publicity which makes FFA very popular
  with administration
• New fund raiser selling 1 pound jars for 8.00
  sold 100 jars on initial rob
• WCHS to play prominent roll in the 2013 Wilson
  County Fair The Year of the Honey Bee

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Questions

• Ask away
• Contact me later if you need anything
• Pam Farmer-Walker, 931-607-5957 cell
• Email walkerpa_at_wcschools.com
• pjfwalker_at_gmail.com

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