Posts by Nick Mawby

General beekeeping This is a list of sound reliable resources that is collated to help teachers, apiary managers and BKA officials to teach beekeeping at all levels. It is part of the BIBBA teaching toolkit that we hope will save you time searching and filtering information. All items are in the public domain, so available…

Origins of honey bees It is easy to think there is no need to know the origins of honey bees, but having a basic understanding will help explain why bees may have different characteristics. Worldwide, there are ten species of honey bee, but there is only one, Apis mellifera, called the Western Honey bee, that…

Overview Beekeeping is fun! This is a well-known saying of mine and how I sign books. The craft has been a source of great enjoyment for me for over 60 years and I try to encourage others to enjoy it too. It is a hobby for most of us, often relief from something else, where…

Teaching material and presenting it It is important that what you teach is good and sound. There may be a temptation, perhaps by less experienced teachers, to simply copy and paste from elsewhere, assuming it is reliable, especially if the same or similar is in several places. The problem with that is that others have…

Some general points to teaching I am not a trained teacher and neither are many of those teaching beekeeping. It may be those who are professional teachers will disagree with some of the points I make, or ways of teaching, but most of us do the best we can with the skills and experience we…

When seeking information about beekeeping, especially online, there is a huge amount of “information” often implying that everything—whether bees or their management—is the same whatever the location in the world. This has partly led to the “beekeeping by numbers”, or “one size fits all” approach that has dominated teaching and learning of the craft in…