No ... my Basic Beekeeping one I have on me all the time in case I meet up with a Master Beekeeper on my travels, in my wallet with my driving licence ... I passed in spite of my smoker going out in the pouring rain and me explaining to the examiner that I'm foundationless so the frame I'm making has a starter strip and wires and no foundation. Getting stung more times than in my entiire beekeeping life because he insisted on me continuing with the inspection when it was blowing a gale and pissing down - I would not have even started let alone continued. Him getting on my deaf side and me mis-hearing "Where would you expect to find queen cells" and me answering - "probably from a good breeder on the internet"
The weather doesn't matter for some practical exams.
crazy but true, if it's peeing down you still have to do it. Just put your big pants on and get stuck in.
My General husbandry should of been 3 hours, 5 1/2 hours they were still going at it.
Had a row with one of the examiners he said the colony had sacbrood, I said the cell was being capped because it had a small hole in, after pulling a perfectly white segmented larvae out of the cell and showing it him on my glove he still said it was sacbrood. He was a bee inspector, I told him he was a fool. That didn't go down well.
Still passed it though lmao. What a charlie he was, I hope he never made the chief examiner job, bloody useless.
The same guy argued the queen cells weren't big enough, they were 25mm out of the grafting cup, I asked him if he had ever grafter queens he replied only for exams. How he got to be an examiner is beyond me.
The lady with him that was the main examiner kept shaking her head, I was concerned she had a twitch.
Turns out she was paired with a numpty.
The joys of exams eh. lmao
It's like passing a driving test, you just have to do what they want and say what they want for the few hours they are there.
