Grantham Beekeeping course. (Beginners Welcome)

Grantham District Bee-keepers are running a beginners course at Grantham starting in April. The course will be in the evening and run for approx 2 hours per session over a period of 10 weeks.

Also at some point during the course an 'open apiary' meeting will be held (date and times for this will be discussed during the regular course times) so that people will get the chance to have a close look at a live beehive.

If you are interested or know anyone who is then please see details below.

I personally attended this course last year and would highly recommend it to anyone who is new to beekeeping or thinking of getting beehives. All ages welcome.

Sneaky Winter Peek

So I went to check on the hives as although you don't do much with them this time of year I needed to check that they were alive and well and also had some stores left. Being the time of year it is obviously it was never going to be warm so I only lifted the lid for a second and had a sneaky peek through the crown board.

Not the best pictures in the world but at least it showed me that they were all alive. As you can see the bees are quite close to the top of the frames and this weekend I will be putting some fondant in to help them along in case there store are running low. If they don't need it then it won't make any difference but I would rather put it in just in case as I don't want to disturb the hive too much in the cold weather.

January Bee Meeting......

Just a reminder that its the monthly meeting on Tuesday, at the Railway Club Grantham, 7.00 for 7.30.  All being well, the secrets of the Top Bar Hive fraternity will be revealed.  Any suggestions for February's meeting gratefully received. 

Any views on whether or not we should / could have a raffle?  The prizes would be a box of biscuits, a bottle of wine and possibly a bee book.

I'll bring the fondant for those who've ordered it, cheques or cash please, £16 a box.  Let me know if you won't be there and so need a different arrangement, or if you've changed your mind and don't want it now.  A couple of boxes are still available.  Each box has five 2.5k packs of fondant, there is a long formal shelf life & in reality even longer and this is a huge saving on the normal retail price.  

Hope to see you all on Tuesday.

Catherine (Secretary)

Bees can save you life night.

On the 22nd January there is a talk being held on 'How Bees can save your life' by David Rose at
Farmeco Community Carefarm.

Would be great to see you all there. Don't hesitate to contact Jez for more details if you want them or myself for a full address.

The talk is arranged to start at 6:30pm.

Stewart Maher's First bees 2013.

As I had hoped one of our members has sent in some photos with a little bit of a story behind them. So this is Stewart Maher's account of what happened when he got his first lot of bees. All good, text book, boring stuff...NOT!!

These photos were from mid July....

 

In our first summer of bee keeping I followed our ‘mentor’s (Roy !!) advise and united two hives that I had just carried out my first swarm control on. That done I then accidentally ‘lost’ the Queen, so, what are we left with??? Two hives, no Queen !! 

Roy advised that I unite the hives,  he couldn’t imagine them swarming again so that was than plan I followed. A week and a half or so later Sue ( the better half!!) called me at work to say there was a swarm in our apple tree and could I come home a.s.a.p. to catch them. 

They turned out to be my bees and the first Queen who had hatched, rather than dispatching her sibling in the only other Queen cell she decided to fly the nest giving them both a fighting chance and terrify Sue instead !!

All’s well that end’s well and we caught and hived them, ironically into the hive I had already swarmed them into, the first one !! We now have two hives and after a good August and September laying prolific amounts of new brood, both are happy and content.

Just about all in now, only a few stragglers

Good old Roy !!

Thanks for sharing withus Stewart and if any of our other readers, (members or not) have any stories or photos to share then please feel free to contact me.

The Thornes Winter Sale.

Winter Sale will start online at noon on Saturday 4th January 2014 when full details will be on their website http://www.thorne.co.uk/winter-sale    Telephone sale orders can be made from 9.00am on Monday 6th January.
Last year, the website crashed with all the additional traffic. Thornes have made every effort to ensure this doesn't happen again.
Orders over £100.00 will be sent carriage free within the UK, except the Channel Islands.
Sale ends 5.00pm Friday 31st January 2014.
Orders will be sent out as soon as possible but please be patient.    In previous years, there has been three weeks work for the despatch department in the first day of the sale!


Get looking now to see what great offers you can pick up for yourselves and your bee's needs for the upcoming year!!