Bee breeding course in W.Sussex,16 Nov

Posted on by January 6, 2014

BEE IMPROVEMENT FOR ALL

A joint BIBBA/ West Sussex BKA event

In conjunction with the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association (BIBBA) the West Sussex BKA will be holding a “Bee Improvement for All” day. This is one of a number that BIBBA will be staging throughout the country on a regional basis. This is an all-day event aimed at encouraging all beekeepers to improve their bees. The purpose is to help all beekeepers to continuously assess their colonies, so they have a good idea of which queens to cull, and which colonies to take queen cells from when they need new queens.

There will be tuition on how to raise queens using queen cells that bees often present us with during the summer, as well as some simple “artificial” techniques that may be suitable for the more advanced beekeeper, or those working in groups.

Date:- Saturday 16th November 2013

Time:- 9.30-4.30

Venue:- Pulborough Village Hall, Pulborough, West Sussex

To apply for tickets, follow instructions on this application form: BIBBA Booking Form Pulborough (you’ll need to login first)

Record Cards

Posted on by June 27, 2013

If you’ve been on any decent course about beekeeping – Julian’s being one such! – you will have been encouraged to keep records of each of your hives. This is a good practice for several reasons – we tend to forget if things aren’t written down, and it’s useful to be able to compare between hives – either your own, or perhaps with another local beekeeper in your mentor group.

If you use such a scheme throughout the season, you will quickly get used to judging your colonies – and have a record of which colonies are your “keepers”, and which might need “upgrading” with a new queen in the late summer, or spring. Attached, you’ll find posted a record card that you can use. You could even laminate it, so that it can be left inside the roof of a hive, and written on with permanent marker pens.

CBKA apiary card

Apiary card content based on Eigil Holm’s “Queen breeding and bee genetics”, and the NBU’s “managing varroa” booklet.

BBKA winter survival survey results

Posted on by June 13, 2013

According to today’s press release from the BBKA, honey bee colony losses are the worst since its winter survival survey began.   A third of all honey bee colonies in England were lost over the winter of 2012/2013 – more than double the losses of the previous year – with increased losses recorded in all regions of England.  SE region figures of 32.4% were very similar to English average of 33.8%

Follow this link for the press release.