We get lots of questions from members of Bee-L about our ON-LINE courses.
New sections of our beginning beekeeper (Apprentice), which is more or less comparable to the combined Apprentice and Journeyman of most extension service courses, and of our next level (Journeyman) course will open in a few weeks. http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=0e17a1730bfd2156c6c695843&id=189e4adef1&e=b1a62c419a.
The first to open will be a new section of the Apprentice. As soon as we finish that course (about six weeks), we'll conduct the next Journeyman class.
Anyone can register for our Apprentice course, regardless of experience.
Our Journeyman class is usually restricted to people who have taken our first level course, and of those, people who also have at least one or more years of experience keeping bees. In other words, one can't finish our Apprentice level, have never kept bees, and jump right into the Journeyman. We find that our Journeyman students have to have had some hands on experience to prepare them for success in the course.
Experienced beekeepers who wish to register for the Journeyman level course can either test out of our Apprentice Course (which can be more difficult than most expect) or I can waive the requirement.
In that case, I will want to interview the candidate before approving admission (call me at 406-544-9007).
FYI, we've had experienced beekeepers take the Journeyman and struggle because we cover issues in the Apprentice course that they expected to see in the Journeyman course. We've also had experienced beekeepers take the Journeyman, then elect to go back and take the Apprentice.
We've been working since January on the third level course - MASTERs. Being in MT, we have had to wait for summer to film parts of this course.
We hope to launch the first section of the MASTERS this fall/winter. I don't see many able to take and pass our Masters course without first having passed our Journeyman course. Each course builds on previous lessons. Experience may compensate for the Apprentice course, but each course introduces new topics.
Finally - one of the best things for these courses has been students having a mix of backgrounds and experience. This works much like the membership of Bee-L. The experienced beekeepers share practical knowledge with newer beekeepers. Equally important, and something that really adds to the courses are our international students.
So far we've had students from nearly every state in the U.S. and Province in Canada. But the ones who bring unique and new perspectives are the students from more distant countries - so far we've had U.K., New Zealand, Australia, several S American countries, the U.K, Ireland, Italy, Rumania, and S. Africa.
Although our courses are in English. We do provide accessibility tools like closed captions for all videos and animations. We find that students from countries where English is a second language, like the captions. It helps them to more readily follow the videos and animations. Obviously, they have to be able to read and write in English for Participation in the Discussion Forums (which are much like the threads of Bee-L), but they can take more time on reading and writing in English. It's the speed of delivery and of our regional dialects of our speech patterns that can be a bigger problem.
The jokes on us, I'm from MT, Scott's from the SE U.S.. Brits, New Zealanders, and Australians often have as much or more trouble understanding us as do the folks from Spain, Italy, Rumania, Poland.
Finally, my personal target audience for these courses are the children and grandchildren of experienced beekeepers. The son of one of our large commercial families took and passed the Apprentice when he was 14; he just completed the Journeyman at 16. The Journeyman was a challenge, but he did ok. I firmly believe that experience is critically important, but that the beekeeping needed to be successful in these times is very different than the beekeeping of even ten years ago. We see this on Bee-L, and we try to provide a broader set of tools and skills than typically covered in beekeeping short courses.
So, I encourage members of Bee-L, from all countries (obviously if you hang out on Bee-L, you can read and write in English), and your family members to look into our courses. We offer them for Certificate or for University Level Academic Credit. And one can audit our courses, but to get a Certificate or a Letter Grade, one can not be a lurker. Everyone has to PASS the course in order to receive a certificate or grade. That means taking exams, writing essays, participating in Discussions.
Hope to see some of you in our upcoming sections. Thanks Jerry
J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt
-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Bromenshenk <[log in to unmask]>
To: BEE-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sat, Jul 18, 2015 4:12 pm
Subject: Re: [BEE-L] Bees and soybeans
Sorry, they were new varieties in development being tested by USDA. I called a
few months ago to ask about status and got no answer. Called the main office
and found that the investigator died suddenly last year.
I tried to find the
grad student, but she had moved on.
However, we had sold them a system for
testing bee attraction, and they clearly found differences. I've seen the same
when looking at modern melons in tented field trials in CA, and when collecting
pollen from field and sweet corn in corn belt.
Bottom line,
geneticists/hybridizers, companies producing new varieties of a wide variety of
crops are focused on issues such as overall productivity, resistance to pests
and diseases, everything BUT attractiveness to bees OR the amounts and quantity
of nectar and/or pollen available to bees. In the case of melons - amazingly
scant amounts of nectar and pollen.
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