Day 9: Top-Bar Training in St. Thomas

We left at 5:30 in the morning to go to Tom's training for top-bar beekeeping in St. Thomas. It was alittle tough for me becuase I had woken up in the night with an earache from water being in my ear. I got help drying it out but still only got four hours of sleep. The car ride was three hours long. We got breakfast when we got there. The coffee came with sweetened condensed milk! I got chicken as well...haven't had meat in awhile.

 The training was at the St. Thomas Beekeepers Association meeting. Tom presented about top-bar hive management. They had already gotten a training about building top-bar hives so they had a good idea already of what it consisted of. But, Tom informed them about how to look into the hive, make decisions based on what you see, and how to deal with problems. It was all very practical and extremely well done. The members were very responsive and actively engaged. Tom is a teacher and did a really great job in interacting with everyone. He had lots of volunteers to demonstrate!
People at the meeting who are beekeepers:

 

Tom showed everyone how to make the wax foundation mold. This was a very popular idea becuase wax is expensive in Jamaica, as are wax foundation sheets. They have to buy from someone that had invested in a mill to make the sheets. Wax is also hard to come by, so it ends up being very expensive for the beekeeper to replace their sheets. One man in particular was very impressed and excited about the service that this cheap alternative can give to a beekeeper.
Tom putting together the wax foundation mold:

 A volunteer helping to build the wax foundation mold:

 Tom showed everyone how to make a pollen trap of his own design that can fit on a top-bar hive. He had everyone involved in building one of their own. He also left them cut pieces of wood as templates so that they could build more. We all had a really great laugh when one of the women was joking about the drawer being "draaws" (ladies underwear).
Building the pollen trap:

 Painting on the wall at the meeting building:

 Tom showing everyone alternative hive material ideas:

The training ended up being from 9:30 to 5:30 becuase of all the topics covered and the tools created. The pollen trap took quite awhile to put together. But, overall it was a fantastic experience. Kylie and I did surveys of all the members for the Farmer to Farmer program. Everyone was SUPER nice. I had lots of fun just talking to people and hearing what they liked about the trainings. It was clear that many of them were able to get more hives and understand management better of the bees. A lot of people wanted to see marketing of bee products as a future training topic. Very cool.