Dates for your Diaries :-

2008

May 2008

The Annual Cow Pie Country Show is to be held at Betchworth on Sunday 11th May starting at 10:00am.

On the Spring Bank Holiday Monday 26th May the The Surrey County Agricultural Society will be holding the "Surrey County Show" at Stoke Park Guildford.

June 2008

From 5th - 7th June the "South of England Show 2008" will be held at the Ardingly Show Ground, West Sussex. Bees and Honey classes are open to all beekeepers, For Show Schedules contact Tel: 01293 784161.

Saturday 7th June is "IPM Day" at the Mickleham Apiary with Alan Byham and our Chairman. More details to follow.

July 2008

The Royal Show will be held at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire from 3rd until 6th July. Schedules can be obtained from the BBKA Office - Tel 024 7669 6679. or e-mail bbka@britishbeekeepers.com

Croydon Division are holding a "Disease Workshop" organised by Celia + David Rudland on Saturday 26th July. More details to follow.

August 2008

The Autumn Clinic will be held at Box Hill School on Saturday 23rd August commencing at 14:30hrs.

October 2008

On the 4th October we will be holding our Annual Honey Show at the Reigate Priory School. More details to follow.

This year the "National Honey Show" will be held at St Georges College, Weybridge, Surrey from 30th October until 1st November. The College is situated off the M25 at Junction 11, and a short walk from Addlestone Railway Station. More information will follow nearer the date.

 

Winter Meetings

Our Winter meetings - unless otherwise stated, commence at 19:30hrs and are held at the Woodhatch Centre in Whitebeam Drive, which is located close to the Woodhatch cross roads on the A217, approximately one mile south of Reigate.

Apiary Meetings

Apiary meetings will be held on every Wednesday evening at the Divisional Apiary commencing at 6:30pm.

Divisional Apiary

Boxhill School - www.boxhillschool.org.uk - located off the Old London Road, Mickleham, Dorking, kindly allow us to have our Apiary within their Grounds, also they make one of their Classrooms available for us to hold our Bee Clinics.

The Apiary can be found in Dell Close opposite the School and is adjacent to Mickleham Village Hall.

 

Photograph by Richard Woodhouse

Reigate Members at the WSBKA Bee Market & Auction

Some members of the Division ventured into West Sussex on a glorious hot Saturday - 10th May for the annual West Sussex Beekeepers Association's Bee Market and Auction. The photos (taken by Pete Ashley) show two of our members registering their interest in the Auction and our President - Malcom Broach discussing the procedures with one of our newer members.

Bees and beekeepers on the island of Crete

Last month I was invited by friends to spend a couple of weeks on the island of Crete, where they have lived for about 4 years. They promised me that they would try to arrange for me to meet a local beekeeper who spoke English. True to their word, a few days after my arrival I was off to meet not just one - but two local beekeepers. Moreover, we were all invited to lunch with them.
The first surprise, our lunchtime hosts, Shaun and Helen, were an English couple who had bought some land and built a very fine Cretan house on it. They had chickens, olive trees, lemon and orange trees, a very prolific vegetable garden and 1 colony of bees. They had just taken up beekeeping and were being guided by their friend and neighbour, Manolis who had several colonies.
I had taken along the latest edition of BeeCraft and Thorne's 2008 catalogue and these were pounced upon by the beekeepers like manna from heaven. I can't imagine what they thought about the prices of the stock as I had already been into the Cretan equivalent of "Scats" and seen for myself, Langstroth hives for about 30 Euros; not brilliantly finished, but serviceable. (I could also have bought a cheap still to make my own Raki, the local firewater!)
After an excellent lunch I was taken to see the hive, beautifully situated among orange trees, a little bit of heaven. They didn't open up the hive but I saw plenty of activity- bees too busy to notice us. It was about then that the questions started. What were we in Britain doing to combat varroa? They wanted to know about resistant mites, IPM and how it was done. How many beekeepers there were, what the forage was like, how much honey we expected from a hive and so on. Other bee diseases didn't seem to worry them too much - they had their ways of coping with them. I was asked about harvesting the honey. How did I do it? They seemed surprised that it was no different from their own way! I in turn, was surprised that their honey crops were not higher. I had told them last year was a bad year here and I only had about 40lb per hive, they were amazed that it was that high! However, theirs is a fairly dry area in summer and they do tend to put an awful lot of hives together on one site (see photo).
The hives are placed along the roadsides and clearings in the mountains taking advantage of the wild thyme which grows everywhere. Some beekeepers paint their hives white and some go for the colours, so that the hives often look like coloured necklaces around the hills.(I saw one hive painted "dayglow" pink)
Before leaving I was given 2 samples of honey to taste and asked which was the nicest - they were both delicious but the experienced beekeeper, Manolis definitely had the edge!
A few days after my visit there was an Email from Shaun to say that he had found a swarm on a tree near his hive ( I wonder where that came from!) With help from Manolis he got it hived and decided to call it "Audrey"

A. Gill 2008

 

 

Pear Blossom - photo by Richard Woodhouse