ASU Introduces Beekeeping Courses

By now, you are all very familiar with the plight of the honey bee. While most understand the perils of pesticides and weather, one of the less “touted” problems for the honey bee is the actual skill level of the beekeepers responsible for their overall well-being. While this may not technically be killing off the numbers of pesticides and weather, there is a real problem with individuals just jumping into the hobby without really knowing what they are doing as well not building proper hives for their honey bees.

Educating Honey Bee Hobbyists

In an effort better prepare hobbyists for beekeeping, Arizona State University will now be offering additional beekeeping classes to students and the general public alike. Obviously, we need more people to take an interest in honey bees if we are going to get past this crisis. By being proactive and working with interested hobbyists, all of these new beekeepers will actually be part of the solution rather than contributing to the already existing problems.

The man in charge of the new program is Cahit Ozturk, who has been studying bees for three decades. Ozturk runs Polytechnic Campus’ bee lab in Mesa, Arizona. He strongly encourages more people to create hives in their own yards to protect and help the honey bee. In fact, he believes if we don’t see more of this, the honey bee extinction problem could be a reality far sooner than anyone really believes. He stated, “If beekeepers don’t do this, we can lose in a few years, in a decade, the whole entire bee population. It’s a huge problem.”

The school has actually had a bee program up for several years now and keeps about 100 hives on campus. However, more recently, Ozturk said interest in beekeeping is picking up. The public has been coming to the school more and more to see how they can pitch in, how they can help the honey bee problem. He stated, “They’re coming here. ‘How can we support the bees and how can we contribute to bees?’ They’d like to help us.”

The beauty of this program is that anyone can take these courses, not just registered ASU students. The courses start out with the basics, such as introductory courses on beekeeping and go to more advanced subjects, such as royal jelly production and queen bee rearing. The cost of the courses ranges from $50 to $300. For more information about these courses, you can click on the source link below to be redirected to Arizona State’s website.

Source: Arizona State University