What you will learn

Philosophy

Our main hope with this internship is to give you a learning experience that is set apart from any other style of beekeeping classes out there. One that focuses on the key basic backbones to stewarding these wonderful creatures so you can have better success with your bees as you continue to learn in the years to come. With that we focus on observation and seasonal understanding.

Structure and Topics

Seasonal understanding means you will finish this internship not only having learned all the necessary actions a beekeeper will need to take throughout each season of the year but DONE them or experienced them in person. But before any of that can be done you will need to have a solid base of Bee anatomy, equipment care and awareness of pest and disease detrimental to the beekeeping colony. Prior to each days hands on workshop you will spend 1-2 hours in a class setting learning these knowledge based facts and be directed to further resources that you can refer to in the future. After each sessions lecture you will spend the next hour practicing other hands on skills that don’t require a bee suit such as building your own equipment, lighting your smoker, making supplemental feed and caring for your bee yard. Next comes everyone’s favorite part. Opening up the Bee Hive!! The in the hive months/lessons of your internship will be broken up in the following ways:

Pre-Spring: Tea time with the bees. One of the most important steps in learning bees and will be done each time prior to us opening hives. Sitting next to the hive, observing their flight patterns, absence or presence of pollen on their legs, watching the guard bees and so much more are crucial steps to learning their way of life, thus learning how you can aid them in what they already know what to do! Once that’s done then we will crack open the lids and Assess the colony, determining their health, their preparedness for the months ahead without much nectar flow, rearranging frames and boxes within the hive to best set them up for Spring, treatments if needed, and inner hive clean up.

Spring: Tea Time with the Bees! First comes pollen then a few weeks later nectar comes yet the queen is kicking her egg laying into gear which means the bees and their babies are hungry! We will continue to assess their food resources within the hive and learn when to intervene if needed. A huge amount of this time will be spent learning about what comes natural to bees in the spring which is called swarming. This is the way God made them to repopulate the world with more bees and a second queen is reared yet when she is hatched she pushes the old one out who takes a substantial amount of worker bees with her. We will learn the warning signs of this happening, how to prevent it if desired and also how to use it to the beekeepers advantage and grow the number of colonies on your lot.

Spring (Peak Nectar Flow): You guessed it, Tea Time with the Bees! Bees are hard at work bringing in nectar and converting the excess to honey. The queen is also continuing to increase her egg laying production so as many worker bees can hatch and then later in life collect more nectar while it’s available. This means proper steps need to be done to give them ample space to grow and store honey. We will continue to practice swarm prevention or utilization for health/colony increase. We will also be learning the warning signs of how healthy the queen and colony of bees are so treatments or interventions can be done at a time when they have the healthiest food available.

Pre-Summer: After tea time we will do our normal hive inspection and probably some hive scavenger hunts to test what skills you have learned so far. Spring coming to an end means the nectar flow will start to slow down, yet the bees will continue to be hard at work bringing in as much pollen and nectar as they can. Monitoring their health is important along with taking the necessary steps to continue orienting their actions to making a productive honey crop.

Summer Dearth: The amount of nectar and pollen available is less than that of which they need to survive. Thus during this time it’s important to note which hives need extra resources and feed them as needed. You will learn how bees can start to turn on each other in this season and rob another colony of their honey to feed their own and what you can do to prevent this. Oh yes, and tea time of course! You’re in for a treat because you will start to notice a different smell in the bee yard which is a sweet aroma of nectar from the bees fanning out all the nectar they have gathered to convert it to honey.

Winter Prep: Break time is over and it’s now another busy time for beekeepers. Determining the bees resources is key now and learning a proper mindset to have when it comes to taking honey away from them to extract. One doesn’t want to take everything and leave them with no honey at all to sustain them through the winter! You also don’t want to leave them with so much space and resources they can’t defend or regulate temperature of during the winter. Treatments need to be considered if any hives are showing signs of illness. A small fall nectar flow typically blooms so monitoring how your bees react when that time comes is important. Equipment might also need fixing or maintaining prior to the rainy and days ahead.

Extras: At all points during the Internship you will be in close touch with Ben who will frequently send out helpful articles, tips and in the moment actions he is doing with the bees between your classes. You will also be notified whenever there is a removal nearby and each intern will get the chance to join in and observe what steps are necessary when removing a colony of bees from a structure or capturing a swarm.

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Calendar (2026 Cohort)

February 21st: Big lecture day reviewing beekeeping basics, different methods and styles of hives, equipment review (this will be handy for everyone but especially for those not choosing to buy The Works bundle package that includes all the necessary gear). Equipment building and smoker lighting practice, tea time with bees and a short time in the bees.

March 21st: Lecture topic is Bee Anatomy and why you need to know it. Hands on topic will include your first hive assessment and a short scavenger hunt and ending with you having plenty of time observing and helping Ben work the bees so you can learn the ways in which to conduct yourself when opening up a bee hive.

April 18th: Lecture Topic is Hive pest, predators and illnesses. Get ready to take notes! Now is when the hands on part starts to get really fun and you can step out on your own with a partner and open the hives and practice assessing them on your own while Ben stands back. If possible this will also be the time you experience how to Split a hive to prevent swarming, add equipment to a growing hive and maybe even see a live removal done on site.

May 16th: Lecture is Receiving your nuc or packaged bees and what to do. This class will walk you through the necessary steps to take if and when you buy your own bees down the road. Hands on will be focused on preparing the hives for the nectar flow, split making again and intervening if/when a hive is found to be weak or dying.

June 20th: Lecture topic will be Plants and Forage and how to make your property as bee and pollinator friendly as possible. Hands on time will be filled with caring for a new Nuc or split of bees along with best caring for a strong colony who is growing large and bringing in ample amounts of nectar to make honey.

July 18th: Lecture Topic will be Bee Nutrition and what proper supplemental feeding entails. Hands on time will include colony scavenger hunts, solo assessment checks with a partner and Ben observing, preparing hives for the dearth season and intervening for weak or swarmed hives.

BONUS CLASS!! We emphasize heavily that if you are beginning your beekeeping journey it’s important to let your bees grow and not focus on harvesting honey for at least a year if not two. Yet everyone needs to experience the joy and taste of freshly harvested honey! It’s the cream of the crop and will convert any skeptic on whether or not they want to have bees. A special class will be set up and hosted for each years interns to come and attend a day of what harvesting honey looks like (as well as the work needed before and after) Along will this a celebratory dinner will take place where stories can be shared and certificates of completion will be given to each intern as congratulations for finishing the course.

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Costs and Disclaimers

This internship is made to be as hands on, personal and practical as possible. When you register to join in you are not just signing up for a single time class or even just the six months going forward, but you are connecting yourself with local and knowledgeable beekeepers around who will be available for you to reach out to in the years to come during your beekeeping journey.

Due to the nature of, well nature, classes are not set in stone and will be adjusted if needed due to weather. If this is the case we will do everything within our power to schedule a make up class in which everyone can attend or give you a personal 1 on 1 class with Ben in its place. However, no remediation or supplemental class will be given if the intern misses a session due to their own circumstances.