We’d like to offer the opportunity to purchase Apiguard through the branch, following on from the popular bulk purchase of honey jars. For those of you who operate just a few hives, purchasing 4 or 6 Apiguard trays online can be unnecessarily expensive, as you buy in boxes of 10, plus the P&P add-ons. The best prices online are for stock with expiry dates in autumn 2023 (e.g. Bee Equipment near Canterbury, or Beekeeping Supplies in Minehead via Amazon); with these offers you should share the purchase with a friend, so it gets used up this year. This is where the branch can help out by coordinating an order, so you get only what you need, you save a bit of P&p and can get longer-dated product.
The plan would be to get expressions of interest by 20th August, and to purchase in time for distribution at our next meetings – which will be on 27th August near Folkestone, or 3rd September at our apiary in Littlebourne.
Please email us at Apiguard Purchase, telling us how many hives you want to treat (note that you need 2 trays per hive), before 20th August.
If you are wondering whether Apiguard is a product you want to use, please join in the treatment discussion thread on our Facebook page (thanks Lisa Jenkins!)
Note that best advice is to get your treatments done as soon as you take honey supers off, so if you want to start your treatments earlier than the end of August, don’t wait for us, for the sake of a few quid! The key thing about Apiguard is that the temperature needs to be >15C. Usually in East Kent we get a warm September, so a slightly later treatment isn’t a big problem.