Apiary Husbandry Technician
Keeps the living colonies of HIVE-13 healthy, queenright, and ready to defend the bloom.
Role Summary
The Apiary Husbandry Technician is the steward of HIVE-13's living capital — the working colonies that pollinate the protected meadows and anchor every defense operation. The role runs daily inspections, manages brood and stores, and catches disease, mite load, or queen failure before it becomes a collapse. Where the field teams defend pollinators abroad, husbandry rebuilds the population at home, frame by frame.
Key Responsibilities
- Conduct routine hive inspections across the apiary, scoring brood pattern, stores, temperament, and queen status, and logging each to the COMB registry.
- Manage feeding, mite-load monitoring, and disease screening, escalating any notifiable pathogen to the Biosecurity Officer immediately.
- Perform splits, combines, and requeening under the Husbandry Lead's direction, prioritising colony welfare over yield.
- Maintain frames, boxes, and apiary equipment to a clean, swarm-resistant standard and sterilise tools between yards.
- Stage colonies for field deployment and rewilding handoff, certifying each as healthy and queenright before release.
- Hold the husbandry watch during swarm season, responding to absconding, robbing, and emergency-feed events.
Required Qualifications
- Hands-on beekeeping experience across a full seasonal cycle.
- Working knowledge of brood disease, mite biology, and colony assessment.
- Calm, deliberate handling of stinging insects under load.
- Meticulous record-keeping discipline for registry entry.
Preferred Qualifications
- Commercial or sideliner apiary background across multiple yards.
- Queen-assessment and basic grafting experience.
- Familiarity with the COMB hive-registry pipeline.
Certifications & Clearances
Curricula are delivered through the Training Academy; currency is tracked on the HR training matrix.
Hazard & Safety
Compensation
Mission-driven S-2 band with seasonal residency stipend and full medical including venom-immunotherapy coverage.
Career Path
Advances to Apiary Husbandry Lead (S-3) or laterals into Queen-Rearing for the genetics track.
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