October Branch Meeting – Asian Hornets

Posted on by September 26, 2024

Whilst the warm days might suggest otherwise, we are moving into the winter season for beekeeping, and the first of our indoor meetings will be held on Wednesday 4th October, at 7.30-9.30pm in the Lounge at  Littlebourne War Memorial Hall Complex (w3w link), High St, Littlebourne, Canterbury CT3 1ST

We are planning to do a Blue Peter type demonstration of wax recovery/purification/moulding, and also update everyone on the Asian Hornet situation.  No need to let us know if you are coming; however, it’s always nice to accompany a cup of tea/coffee with cakes/biscuits, if any of you have the time to make/bake.

Regarding asian hornets, I hope that many of you are running monitoring stations or hornet traps; if you need to procure some Trappit (a great bait liquid for asian hornet detection), then please let Lisa Jenkins know ahead of time, and we will make sure that there is some available to collect on the evening.  The branch is subsidising the cost of Trappit by 25%,  so that 1ltr =£13.50. Call Lisa on 07977 442282 to let her know that you’d like to pick some up.

Other Dates for your diary:

November branch meeting (Littlebourne Village Hall); Wed 1st November 7.30pm

December branch party (Littlebourne Village Hall); Wed 6th December 7.30pm

Dover Beekeepers Honey Show, Saturday 21st October, 2.30-4.30pm; Shepherdswell Village Hall, Cox Hill, Shepherdswell, Dover CT15 7NN

National Honey Show, 26th to 28th October 2023, Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AJ

September branch meeting – Wildwood

Posted on by September 26, 2024

Our last apiary meeting of the summer will be on 16th September in Janet MacDonald and Jenny Warbey’s apiary, which is on the grounds at Wildwood in Herne.  The focus will be looking at various hive patterns, and it will be an opportunity to discuss advantages and disadvantages of several of the common (and less common) hives.

Saturday 16th September – time 2-4pm

Please can you let Janet know by the morning of Saturday 16th September, if you will be coming so that she can let the park know numbers to expect.

Bee Zone
Wildwood Trust
Wealden Forest Park
Canterbury Road
Herne Common
CT6 7LQ

Park in the Main car park and meet outside the Main entrance at 2 pm. We will then sign you all in to the park, free of charge, and then will take you to Bee zone.
Bring a bee suit if you have your own (usual apiary hygiene rules apply – clean suits and gloves) and we have plenty of suits to borrow if you do not have your own suit.
Refreshments provided – please stay for a chat and some tea and goodies.  If weather is bad then you are still welcome – we won’t be able to open hives but can sit in the shelter and talk bees.

August branch meeting – honey extraction

Posted on by September 26, 2024

Our next apiary meeting will be at Debbie Burton’s home/apiary on Saturday August 5th between 2-4pm.  The address is Waverley, Stanford, Ashford, TN25 6DL.

This is the time of year for honey harvesting, and we will demonstrate the principles, and hopefully extract a few supers of honey from our branch apiary.

We’lll have various types of extractor on display, and will use at least one of them to spin out some honey.  We’ll also review the latest news about asian hornet, and discuss how asian hornets develop in the late summer and early autumn.  Depending on numbers of people attending the meeting, we may also take a look at Debbie’s bees.

Please let us know if you can join us on Saturday (the meeting is not weather dependent), just so we can get an idea of how many people, and how many activities we need to do.

If you want to help out with honey extraction, then we’ll ask you to wear gloves, so if you have any allergies, please let us know.  If you want to do some bee inspection, please come with clean suits and gloves.  Per Kent BKA requirements, we will ask folks to sign a disclaimer form, acknowledging the (small) risks inherent in beekeeping.

More importantly, if there are any keen bakers, our meetings aways go better with a cake or two!

Apiguard Group Purchase

Posted on by September 26, 2024

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.