I applied to receive exam feedback from the British Beekeepers Association on my Module 1 ‘Honeybee Management‘ exam. Even though I passed I like to do this because it’s a chance to get comments from super-insightful expert beekeepers. This year the feedback arrived extra fast and came through my door this week.
Here it is in pdf format, if anyone’s interested: Module 1 feedback – it provides ideal answers for clipping/marking a queen, doing a Pagden style artificial swarm, making up a nucleus, confirming queenlessness, telling the difference between laying workers/a drone laying queen and outlining a ‘Introduction to beekeeping’ talk for beginners.
The examiner’s comments come from Margaret Thomas, who has been keeping bees since 1973 – nearly ten years longer than I’ve been alive. You have to respect that kind of phenomenal experience.
This is the exam paper that I sat: Module 1 March 2012 exam paper.
Adventuresinbeeland's Blog 
Thanks for your module review! I wish we had things like this here. I might have to break down and do an in depth search for a class like this, cause I would love to know more and beekeeping on your own isn’t as glamorous as it sounds.
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Hope you can find somewhere! A young guy like you could even make a career of it, maybe do seasonal work in big beekeeping operations in the US or Australia?
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That would be quite the summer job! My family has asked if I’ll go into the commercial side of beekeeping, but it really just seems too stressful.
I’ll stick to gardening I think, lol.
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I am a few years behind you but I intend to go down this road too. Looking forward to the microscopy work for some reason.
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Cool 🙂 I went to a microscopy class run by my local association and enjoyed it. We were looking for acarine mites. My problem is, I hate the idea of killing any of my bees to study them, as it seems so ungrateful. But I could look at any I accidentally squash! It’s a useful skill to have I think.
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Hi,
I’m just starting to study for Module 1, so posting the comments you received on your paper is quite handy for me. I’ll give this post a mention when I next write something about BBKA exams.
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Hi Steve, glad it was helpful for you. Good luck with Module 1!
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