The apiarist job is to provide bees with a nice clean home and ready-made foundations as well as keeping the beehives pest free.  Bees do most of the work producing honey but as a beekeeper/apiarist it is important to have and maintain the knowledge on how best to take care and manage our hives so they can flourish and produce good honey.
A beekeeper may also be responsible for preparing bees and equipment for pollination activities, feeding bees, cleaning and constructing hives, raising and replacing queen bees, dividing colonies when necessary, and replacing combs. Some beekeepers may work directly with honey processing and bottling equipment.
If you would like to help the plight of our honeybees, native bees and pollinators, and guarantee our future health and food security, please consider:

• Becoming a natural beekeeper (this alone will not necessarily ‘help the bees’, however, as a beekeeper you will become acutely aware of the issues surrounding bees, and this will enable you to educate others)
• Planting bee and pollinator friendly gardens
• Providing habitat for native bees and pollinators
• Supporting local organic and biodynamic farmers, or becoming one yourself!
• Becoming a bee activist! Many of the problems facing honeybees and pollinators are due to a combination of synergistic factors, including but not limited to pests and diseases, the high level of toxic chemical use by humans, loss of diversity and quantity of forage, loss of habitat due to urbanisation and industrial farming practices, industrialised beekeeping practices and beekeeper applied chemicals.

Jim will be happy to share his wealth of knowledge with you and supply you with all the equipment you need. Visit Wattle Grove Honey soon to chat with him.