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SWHBK Members Meetings & Events 2024*

 

01/05/24       Practical session - 'Hive and frame assembly'

05/06/24       In-house - 'Queen rearing in simple terms'

July/Aug        Summer get together at club apiary - date to tbc

04/09/24       Derek Mitchell - topic tbc

02/10/24       Barbara Daly - 'Apitherapy'

06/11/24       William Steynor - topic tbc

03/12/24        Christmas quiz and social - location tbc

*all meetings take place at Brockenhurst Village Hall on the first Wednesday of each month starting at 19:30, unless otherwise notified.

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News 2024

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May 2024

Talk and apiary

Wednesday 1st  May

 

Building hives and frames

 

This meeting will be a practical session on building brood boxes, supers and frames. Philip will give a quick demonstration on how to build a brood box. He will be bringing 5 unassembled brood boxes, various supers and also frames. Members will be divided into teams and asked to make up a brood box, a super and some frames. We will be holding a raffle and the winner will win one of the hives that have been made that evening.

 

Please can members bring a battery powered pistol drill with posiidrive bit and countersink if they have one. Don’t forget to mark it so you know it’s yours. The meeting will be in the craft room on the ground floor of Brockenhurst Village Hall.

April 2024

Talk and apiary

What a great month we've had. Firstly, Roger Patterson gave a great talk on ‘My simple approach to bee improvement’ on Wednesday 3 April. 

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Roger has been keeping bees since 1963 and focused on his practical experience with great tips and anecdotes for us to learn from. His talk provided us with good ideas on how to improve our bee colonies and make good use of the club apiary.

 

Then on Thursday 18 April we held our first members event at the new club apiary. We welcomed Clare Densley and Martin Hann from the education department at Buckfast Abbey ran an inspection training session.

 

Members were split into four groups based on experience. Clare and Martin showed each group how they carry out an inspection. Luckily the weather was on our side and the bees were calm.

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March 2024

Nucs & Uses - 6 March

David & Celia Rudland came to give a talk to us about 'Nucs and their uses' on Wednesday 6 March in Brockenhurst Village Hall.

Who knew there were so many uses for a Nuc? Swarm collecting, colony splits, new colony building, spare colony and the list goes on.

We all took away actions to do something different with our Nucs this season.
 

Feb 2024

Training Courses for 2024

Please can you let John know if you would take the 'Improvers course' starting Thursday 14 March. 

The course comprises of 4 classroom sessions on Thursday evenings (14 and 21 March and 11 and 18 April) in New Milton. This is followed up by practical sessions in the club apiary. The cost of this course is £50. We highly recommend this course to those of you who started beekeeping in 2022 or 2023. You will also have the option to take the BBKA Basic assessment this summer.

The 'Beekeeping for Beginners' course started on Wednesday 21 February. John is looking forward to introducing you to the magical world of bees. Plus you will get to meet the rest of the committee and your bee buddy during the course.

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Feb 2024

Club AGM - 7 February

 

The AGM & meeting took place on Wednesday 7 February at 19:30 at Brockenhurst Village Hall. 

 

Thank you to everyone who came. We are pleased to say that Simon has remained chair, Wendy as secretary and Claire is now formally elected as the association's treasurer.

 

Members actively engaged with discussions about the new club apiary. We also gave a sneaky preview of the new website, which was well received. 
 

Jan 2024

New Apiary 

The club apiary new shed was delivered last Thursday.   The site is perfect and we cannot wait to get the shed up and the apiary moved.  Several members have been working super hard to get slabs moved and the area prepped.  We will update you further as the site progresses.

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Bees at Work

Training:

training.swhbk@gmail.com

swarms.swhbk@gmail.com

Swarms:

enquiries.swhbk@gmail.com

General Enquiries:

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