An unexpected opportunity came along this week with news that there was a 2 day course happening at the Agro Tourism Bee Centre close to the Chiang Mai Night Safari.

Some nifty phone calls secured places on this free course, mainly aimed at prospective Bee Farmers, for our four Mattayom level students.

Always looking for new learning opportunities for our children I am very happy that we got this one sorted.

I went along to supervise the kids but even though the course was in Thai language and I struggled with the classroom sessions I still found it quite fascinating myself.

I was also very proud of the children as they did their best to keep up.

The classroom sessions were quite long and many of the adults got fidgety so I think our four handled it very well.

As usual Tai, our top student who appears to have a general thirst for knowledge of any sort, was most attentive making many notes and being keen to have a go at the practical session at the end of the first day.

It was a long day 9am -4pm, with a 15 minute break at 10.30 and an hour for lunch at 12.

Coffee and cake in the short break and a very good lunch was all laid on free as well.

The second day arrival at the course was hampered by the flooding in Chiang Mai with traffic at a stand still every way I tried.

We ended up taking a long route around Rim Ping and towards Ban Tawai having to turn back on the BanTawai road which was swamped with flood water.

We finally made it by 10.30am. There was even more classroom time on the second day but it ended with a very interesting session with the bees where staff demonstrated feeding and cleaning methods.

It is an activity that takes a long time to build up as a business with profits taking up to 2 years to come.

However, we may well try a little bee keeping here on a hobby scale in order for the children to put their  learning into practice if they wish.