Timmins workshops offer everything needed to start beekeeping and more

 Bees, gardening, and other food sovereignty topics are on the menu this spring.

Brianna Humphrey is getting back to the core of what she wanted to do when she started Radical Gardens, and she’s teaming up with Waxwing Commons, Timmins Ecological Beekeeping Association (TEBA), and Millson Forestry Services. The team will be running workshops to provide people with information and the tools to source their food and more.

“It’s been a long journey back to the beginning,” she said. “When we started Radical Gardens, it was a farm and we taught some workshops and it was a much larger farming operation form what it is now, but we feel like we’ve pivoted so far away from where we were and what we were supposed to be that it’s time to recall to home.”

The first workshop through Radical Gardens is on Saturday, and Humphrey has been putting together seed packs and starter beds for that event with Millson Forestry Services.

The point of the workshop is to make sure people have all the tools needed to start, and the beekeeping workshop will do the same.

There are two levels to the beekeeping workshop. The first is for people with bees and equipment already involved in the process. The second level is for those just starting who need the equipment, and that level includes the bees.

“The bees are from Northern Ontario, and it includes everything you need and some time with the beekeepers,” she said. “If you can’t bring your bees home, we’re building a nice apiary.”

Humphrey said the partnership made sense with TEBA, Millson Forestry Services, and the Waxwing Commons.

“People ask us about this all the time, and I always love a good mash-up,” she said. “All these people are such wonderful businesswomen. I love doing stuff with them, so why not just band together and offer some workshops, and maybe we can fill in some gaps for people who have a lot of questions.”

She said having the physical space to do the workshops is also important, even when video lessons online are available.

“Sometimes just doing it with someone who does it, you take so much more away from it,” she said. “And you get to pick that person’s brain.”

The workshops will cover all sorts of topics.

“It’s the whole gamut from seed planting to beef tallow soap making, to Italian cooking classes to cake decorating, to animal husbandry,” she said. “It’s a good team-up, we’re just going to keep them going.”

She also hopes to have more beekeeping workshops.

“My goal is to offer one throughout the season,” she said. “It can be really hard with bees and farming sometimes to schedule things. You kind of have to see how the season will roll out.”

The workshops are listed on radicalgardens.com.