A Beekeeping Community for Beekeeping Students
The most rewarding and challenging part about beekeeping is that the learning never ends. I’ve been tending bees for a decade now, and I’m always discovering something new and surprising about these lovely little creatures – and always learning from other beekeepers!
That’s why I’m excited to be setting up a Beekeeping Community of Practice alongside my regular online beekeeping courses so that participants can share their experiences, ask questions, troubleshoot challenges, and learn from each other.
A Home for Beekeeping Course Content
It’s not that online beekeeping communities and forums don’t exist – they absolutely do – a few of my favourites include the Edmonton Urban Beekeepers and Royal Alberta Urban Beekeeping Collective Facebook Groups and the forums over at Beesource Beekeeping. And I encourage you to join them!
And still, I’ve taught hundreds of new beekeepers and hardly a week goes by that I don’t field multiple beekeeping questions from my inbox. And while I’m always happy to respond, a few things occurred to me:
- It’s not uncommon to get repeat questions.
- Being new to beekeeping can be intimidating.
- I want to create a safe space where my past students can ask questions and brush up on their knowledge.
- Learning alongside other beekeepers is a powerful tool.
After teaching beekeeping courses online, I realized that it would be helpful to take the course content and break it into a bite-sized, searchable resource for existing and past students. So, instead of experiencing the content once, students will be able to go back, ask questions, and review videos and resources to improve their beekeeping knowledge. This is why I’m excited to announce that all of my new beekeeping students will have access to the course community for the entire beekeeping season.
From now on, I will add videos and resources to the Beekeeping Community board for ongoing student access. The Community of Practice will grow stronger and become a more useful tool as resources, questions, and answers are added after each beekeeping class.