LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — If you're going to launch a beekeeping program, you should find someone that's passionate about bees.
"I'm here to tell you it's my conversation and my relationship," Casie Berkhouse said.
It sure sounds like Casie Berkhouse, an environmental educator at Lackawanna College Environmental Education Center, is the right woman for the job. We met with her to talk about the beginner beekeeping certificate program that starts this spring.
"It starts out with a look into the history of beekeeping, how it got started here in the United States and then it moves onto why it's important especially here in northeastern Pennsylvania."
For now, the bees are being taken care of off the property, but we followed Casie to where the bees will be kept and talked about the hands-on experience students will have with the bees.
"As you get deeper into the topics, the more and more you want your hands on your boxes, and working with your frames, and finding your queen, and checking out what's going on in each one of your boxes," Berkhouse said.
As well as the importance of maintaining a healthy bee population.
"Everyone immediately thinks of honey but there's so much more than that. We can render wax and take that and make it into candles," Berkhouse said. "They are responsible for one of every three bites of food that we get to enjoy every single day. So when you think about that and look at your dinner plate, it brings it all together."
The certificate program is broken down into three levels of certification. The beginner beekeeping level is 10 weeks long and runs every Thursday starting March 26. It costs $250.