How is running a club apiary different?

[smallbee]

lucky you.

Did I mention we have two rival associations? It may be worse!
I actually did the IBA preliminary exam, the joys of poring over teeny tiny embedded images in a Google form to try and decide if it was supposed to be showing stringy foulbrood on a matchstick or not....

 

[smallbee]

Anyway. I hereby present my revised plan (excluding normal husbandry stuff such as midwinter OAV and early spring hefting). Many thanks for all the sagely advice.

Main goals for 2025 will be to get to a state of having at least 4 full-size healthy well-tempered colonies (and no hot colonies), on decent equipment, on single hive stands, adequately spaced out - just get everything into a good, stable state where it's not neglected, where the members are getting something out of it, and it's not overly burdensome on any one person, including me.

Over winter:

• Order 4 queens of nice docile stock for earliest possible collection in 2025
• Order or build new single hive stands (18 inches) new floors, whatever else occurs after sorting through the shed
• Fix apiary layout to make demonstrations easier, spread the colonies out.
  • Create an area for 'hot' hives at the far end (can use some of the old double/triple stands for that)
• Set up folders with printed out record sheets for each hive, and some spares

During the season:

• Intro new queens ASAP
• Keep an eye out for fiddling and deal with it gently but firmly.
  • I think I'll continue what I've been doing through the end of this season and do regular short written reports to the association on what's been happening in the apiary, so it's a regular reminder that I'm actually managing it
  • Will probably need to do regular reminding about the record sheets for a while, too
• Try to get others involved with apiary chores like making frames up, chopping the nettles back, etc
• Make sure regular management work (inspections, swarm prevention, varroa surveillance etc) happens and are used as demo opportunities
• Continue to assess hive temperament and deal with any unreasonably grumpy colonies ASAP
• In general remember to spend money if it saves faff and/or results in a better apiary setup quicker; volunteer burnout is a real problem and there's no point in a crap teaching apiary
• See if I can make post-apiary-visit coffee a thing

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

we used to give the beginners a frame making class during the winter - make up enough frames for the following season.
If you can, make/buy hive stands that are 18" high, it makes inspections much easier - especially when teaching.

 

[smallbee]

we used to give the beginners a frame making class during the winter - make up enough frames for the following season.
If you can, make/buy hive stands that are 18" high, it makes inspections much easier - especially when teaching.

Yep, we do that as well - not sure what happened to the frames after! I suspect we probably have more than enough anyway this year. There were two deadouts due to neglect this summer (pretty sure one due to queen loss, the other either varroa or starvation). I cleaned and sterilized the frames, lost a lot of the comb to waxmoth before I got to it, annoyingly. But not all.

 

[elainemary]

Thanks jenkinsbrynmair, a lot of food for thought there. The 'fiddling' is a definite hazard, but in recent times the only fiddling has been done by me. If I can get the place thriving a bit more then it'll probably become more of a problem, so I expect it will be a sign of something going right, as well as a pain

I need to walk a fine line, particularly with being pretty new - I really do need to use the expertise of the more senior association members, and I need to keep them on-side - but I am indeed the person who should be coordinating things and making the management decisions. Someone's going to call me bossy before 2025 is out, I'm sure of it - I'm a woman, and shortarsed and babyfaced to boot, so that's nothing very new.

Sounds to me you’ve got a great plan and a brilliant attitude, by taking others with you, along your journey. Good luck!