Many of you will know that Stuart Andrews, our chairman, is also vice-chair of the charity Bees Abroad, which aims to relieve poverty though beekeeping. He recently made a trip to Uganda to help train beekeepers – who themselves will become trainers in their local communities. You can read more about this at the Bees Abroad website – here.
Our Whitefriars page has been updated with some nice photos of our “meet the public” Bee Day held in June. If you have any other photos, they can easily be added to the gallery – just contact Adrian.
We still have spaces for more apiaries to visit by Michael Cooper on the Bee tour on Sunday 1st July.
Everyone who took part last year enjoyed it and thought it was worthwhile – Michael is a very helpful Seasonal Bee Inspector, so do come forward. We would especially like to see new beekeepers and those who have not been visited by Michael this year.
If we follow last year’s pattern we will visit three in the morning have a break for lunch where people can join or leave the tour and then three in the afternoon. There is no need to lay on anything more than a drink, although at the lunch and last visit it is nice for people to bring a shared lunch or tea.
Please contact Julian Audsley ASAP if you would like to take advantage of Michael’s tour.
I was lucky enough to be invited to the media event and release of Bombus subterraneus (short-haired bumblebee) at Dungeness, to represent CBKA on 28th May. Many of you will have seen Dr Nikki Gammans talking about this at our meeting in March. The morning was very impressively organised, with lots of media and visitors. I can’t do better than point you at the interview that Nikki did with the BBC (here), but I managed to take a couple of pictures of two of the 51 bees released, one in its container, and another resting on a flag iris, after taking to the wing.
Adrian
