Queen Bee Rearing L4

Please contact us to enquire about the cost of participating in this programme.

This is a 60 credit NZQA course teaching you how to be an assistant queen rearer or to raise queens for your own use.  You will achieve New Zealand Certificate in Queen Bee Rearing (Level 4). Upon graduation of this course, you will be a confident, capable assistant queen rearer for commercial operations or as an independent queen rearer with a small number of beehives.  10 modules – from grafting through to breeder selection and to disease and pest control, and concluding with mating, caging and caring for queens. 

The course runs for 40 weeks and will be a combination of weekend workshops, evening workshops and online workshops. It will run the beekeeping calendar (approximately August to end of May). 

There are three different types of workshop - Weekend, evening, and online. Weekend - TWO full day workshops run on Saturday and Sunday once per month. Evening - ONE two hour workshop on a Tuesday evening 10 days after the weekend workshop Online - ONE online session during the evening each week

You cannot miss any more than three workshops without prior consultation with your tutor over the duration of the course. If you miss more than this you will fall behind and miss out on vital information. 

By the end of this course you will have completed the New Zealand Certificate in Queen Bee Rearing (Level 4) which is an NZQA recognized qualification. This builds on your foundation knowledge of beekeeping to move into Queen Rearing and is sought after in the Apiculture Commercial Sector. If you have this certification, you have a much higher chance of being employed by Apiculture Companies. 

The course has a mixture of written assessments on the theory of queen rearing together with a significant amount of practical work. Both theory and practical work will be done during workshops and in your own time at home.  You must have access to an internet connection and be comfortable working online and with Microsoft Word and Excel. 

You need to have either completed or be booked in to complete this prior to the start of the course. AFB Disease Recognition Course $100  1 day workshop  Book through AFB training