SOLD OUT! Please join our waitlist in case a spot becomes available!

Come join facilitators Hana’ Maaiah and Brittany Levers for a basic introduction to beekeeping!

What we will cover:

• Learn about the anatomy of a hive and honey bee biologies

• Conduct a practice hive check with live bees in a safe demonstration hive

• Discover pests and diseases that impact the hive

• Learn about a brief history of bees from a BIPOC focus

• Explore needs and resources to actually start beekeeping!

About Hana’:

Peace! My name is Hana’ Maaiah (she/her) and I am a Palestinian-Jordanian farmer, bee keeper, educator, organizer and nature lover. As a nature-nerd, I study environmental science and environmental agriculture, and find purpose in exploring farmings’ intersections of energy, climate, race, politics and spirituality. I believe that regenerative communal food is a way to heal our ecosystems while sharing food, remaining curious, and forming strong alternative communities.

I started hosting bees in an urban farm in Birmingham, AL, where I served as the beekeeper for three years. Their hypnotic communal vibrations quickly embraced me, and I made space for several home hives in my backyard, tending to them for another two years. During my time working professionally and personally as a beekeeper, I learned about how important each members of the hive is, what roles they place, how they shift with the seasons, the way the communicate through hormones and dance, and of course, share their sweet treats! I am honored to offer to the inspiration and knowledge that bees and beekeepers have shared with me in "Befriending Bee's : An introduction to Beekeeping". I hope to pass forward what I have learned to equip a new generation of Earth-minded, BIPOC stewards to befriend and protect our fuzzy kinfolk.

About Brittany:

Brittany (she/they) is a first generation Jamaican-American, Hudson Valley native, second year Beekeeper, Writer and Events Manager weaving a vibrant tapestry of food, flavor, and community.

Brittany began her journey connecting to land in 2020 farming with Red Hook Farms in Brooklyn, Soul Fire Farm, and Rocksteady Farm and has now transitioned into beekeeping at Ayni Farm.

When she’s not working she’s is resting, eating, or traveling or all 3. 

*Due to the intimate nature of this workshop, the facilitator has requested we keep our class size to 30 participants. Please fill out the waitlist here. We will contact you if a spot becomes available or we decide to offer another additional workshop date for the waitlist. Please email Programs@RockSteadyFarm.com if you have any questions. Thank you!*

See workshop description below:

In this virtual workshop facilitated by Yaquana Williams (she/her), we will explore the depths of queer sensuality and love. Questions like: "what is sensuality?", "how can we explore our fluidity through herbalism?" and "what is Queer herbalism?" will be explored.

This herbalism workshop will explore how building a restorative relationship to plants creates room to explore yourself and your sensuality deeper. We will be exploring herbs as allies to the queer community and how they can be gender affirming by learning to create herbal remedies to build deeper relationships to ourselves and our bodies. This is important especially as we transition through life, and this workshop will have an emphasis on learning to support the endocrine system through herbal creations.

We will also explore hormonal care for trans/non binary people aiming to provide loving support as they transition. We will talk about the queer history of herbal medicine and how it challenges the binary medical industrial complex. 

The workshop is sliding scale, donations $5 and above are encouraged.

About the facilitator: Yaquana is a queer herbalist, lover, dreamer, student of life, and soul magician. She comes from a Black ancestral lineage of West Virginia Mountain kin and Deep Southern Alabama roots. She was born in New Jersey, growing up in Newark and Irvington where she was introduced to her love of urban farming. In her professional work, she is a curriculum designer and educator uplifting gender expansive youth through social justice activism projects. She has been practicing plant medicine for 5 years now (officially) but it has always been in her blood. She was a student under hood herbalism, rooted medicine circle, and the people's medicine school. Her plant medicine practice is inspired by the tradition of Black people throughout the African diaspora to use plants to heal themselves and their communities. She loves to dig her hands into soul and she loves the earth. Her herbalism is also roooted in spirit, derived from ancestral ways of rootwork and conjure in the hoodoo tradition. She plans to open her own spiritual herbalism practice named AquayasAbyss focused on integrating shadow-work with plant medicine and supporting her queer community.

Kitty (they/them) is excited to share practical carpentry tips that every beginning farmer should know. Whether its building raised beds, installing hipboards on a high tunnel, or hanging a shelf for storage, this workshop aims to make simple carpentry feel just that- Simple and safe. 

We will answer questions such as: Do I need a hammer or drill for this? What kind of screws should I buy? Where do I get this from?

Throughout this virtual workshop, we will learn basic carpentry terminology, tools, concepts, and safety protocols that make carpentry accessible. We hope this workshop will empower you to apply your new skills into projects relevant to your work in food sovereignty, agriculture, resistance & beyond.

Cost of the workshop is sliding scale, donations $5 and above are encouraged!

About the instructor:

Kitty is a Black Queer educator, farmer and activist growing food in upstate NY for distribution in the Bronx. Born and raised in the Bronx, they grew vegetables with their family at Taqwa Community Farm, a community garden founded by their activist parents and grandfather to provide safety and food to the Highbridge community. They were drawn to working in horticulture, agriculture and education because they deeply value community building through information sharing. They have over a decade of experience as a farmer, and educator and have worked and continue to work with institutions such as The New York Botanical Garden, and Lehman College as an Educator and urban farm consultant. Now, Kitty is the Co-founder and Co-Manager of Iridescent Earth Collective, a Queer, Black & Latinx led farm duo from the Bronx dedicated to increasing the capacity of our communities by growing and distributing food for mutual aid in the Bronx and through information/knowledge exchange with our friends and colleagues in this work.Kittys’ long term goal is the creation of an inclusive agro-ecological and educational space for marginalized farmers like themselves and to steward land in a way that honors their roots and the voices of those around them.

Intro to Mending

In this two hour long virtual workshop, we will focus on sewing skills for repairs and minor alterations to clothing. We will cover a few basic stitches (running stitch, backstitch, and ladder stitch) and how to apply them to patching holes, repairing split seams, and hemming. Please bring whatever articles of clothing you have that need repairing.  Sliding scale $0-$25.

Materials needed:

Needles

Thread

Scissors

Straight pins (recommended)

Scrap fabric (for practicing on and for patching)

Mending projects

A flat surface with good lighting

More information about buying materials will be in the registration confirmation email.

About the instructor: Luca (they/them) is a farmer at Rock Steady. They learned how to sew from their mom by mending and making their own clothes. Since then, their practice has grown to include a wide variety of fiber arts, including spinning with the local Elmendorph spinners guild. They love sharing the joys of working with fiber with those around them. When they’re not farming or stitching, they’re often baking bread, doing crosswords, or reading.