November 7th mtg

Posted on by November 6, 2012
This is a reminder that our AGM is Wednesday 7th November at Whitefriars Conference room  at 7.30.  We will have reports of the year from officers and then elect the new officers for the year and committee to help run the our activities.
There is then an opportunity to put your own ideas forward for activities and how the branch will be  developed over this next year.
 After this we have two short films for you to enjoy. Details below.

Mandyam Srinivasan – Vision, Robotics and Bees

Mandyam Srinivasan’s research focuses on the principles of visual processing, perception and cognition in simple natural systems – especially bees. In this talk, he shows how much bees can learn, by training them in mazes. He also discusses the role of the head-butt in the waggle dance (!)

Jonathan Drori: The beautiful tricks of flowers

In this visually dazzling talk, Jonathan Drori shows the extraordinary ways flowering plants — over a quarter million species — have evolved to attract insects to spread their pollen: growing ‘landing-strips’ to guide the insects in, shining in ultraviolet, building elaborate traps, and even mimicking other insects in heat.

December 2012 social event

Posted on by November 13, 2012

Book Now for the Canterbury Beekeepers Christmas Social 2012

Our Christmas social event will be held in the centre of the city on Wednesday evening 5 December. All are invited as are partners and friends to have a festive evening together.

Date and Time: Wednesday 5 December. Starting with a brewery tour at 6pm (optional) followed by a buffet starting at 7pm.

Location: The Foundry is a brew pub located just off the High St in the centre of Canterbury – it is in the lane behind Jones shoeshop.

Cost: Somewhat dependent on numbers and choices but expected to be of the order of £25 per couple
(or ~£12.50 per person) including a buffet meal and brewery tour.

Action now. Please confirm by return email before 15 November if you will be attending with the following information.  To make things simple, use our contact form to email David, with the following information:

Member’s name
Total number attending
Number for brewery tour

 
Looking forward to seeing you there,
Dave
(dcockburn@eldaka.demon.co.uk)

Dover & District BKA Honey Show

Posted on by October 6, 2012

As discussed at our meeting on Wednesday, the DDBKA honey show is on Saturday 20th October.  If you want to enter, there are a number of open classes, and we’re keen to keep up the recent good attendance by CBKA at the local honey show.  You must have sent (by post) an application form to the Show Secretary, Chris Holdstock, to arrive not later than Saturday 13th October.

Attached here is a pdf file with the show schedule, and the application form you need.

Brogdale Cider Festival updated

Posted on by September 24, 2012

Report
Many thanks to all of you who took the time to help out at the event at Brogdale. For those of you who attended on Saturday, you picked the right day! Sunday was somewhat of a wash-out  and it finally ended around 3PM. However we did have the benefit of a folk group, who played several jigs to keep us warm, and we were entertained by a group of young children, most of whom completed at least 3 rounds of tasting honey (pity their parents later on) and bombarded us with questions about bees.

Julian did his usual excellent job of promoting beekeeping with his presentations, which are always a driver for people to visit the stand. The observation hive is always a big draw and it would make a material difference to attendance, interest and sales of honey if we didn’t have it there.

Colin, Sue and I provided honey for sale – you can see the picture of Sue behind the stand before the punters turned up here.

Honey sales were rather brisk on Saturday but slowed on Sunday. There were some useful trends/tips to pick up from the sales and we can perhaps discuss that at the next club meeting in October.  Our prices were as follows:

16oz                       £6.00
12oz                       £4.95
8oz                         £3.85
4oz                         £2.00
Gift Pack              £9.00 (2 x 8oz in gift pack with wooden honey dripper)

Brogdale Cider Festival
We have a stand at the Cider Festival on Saturday/Sunday 22/23 September. We are looking for volunteers so please consider giving up some time for some very enjoyable activities – talking about beekeeping, selling honey and sampling the cider. If you would like to volunteer, please email me with any preferred days and times.

Last Call for CBKA Polo Shirts
Our branded CBKA Polo shirts have been well received by everybody. I am about to place another order so if anybody would like one, please email your request including size (S, M, L, XL, XXL). They are great value at £10 – it is nice for all attendees at events like Brogdale to wear a club shirt, if possible.