Barnet news by Kaye Hoggett

The past couple of months have been quite busy, apart from the honey flow and all that entails. The 21 nucs. we ordered back in March have now all arrived and been installed, so all our old hands who lost bees are back in business as well as all the members of the Class of 06. Congratulations to all of you on completing the course and becoming beekeepers. You will also be pleased to know that all our candidates for the BBKA Basic passed the assessment this year. Again congratulations to all of you. According to my calculations we will have at least 10 people taking their Basic next year, it could be more if our older members put their names forward.

Turning to another subject you will all be aware that we have apiaries at Whalebones and Arkley Manor Farm. Well we are running out of capacity on these sites, so we are in the process of opening a third at Byng Road, which will go live next year.

Looking forward can I remind everybody that honey should be taken in mid August and Varroa treatment commenced at the same time.

Assuming that you take my advice, that leaves 6 weeks to prepare your honey for the Honey Show (30th Sep) even if you don’t have any honey there will be a class you can enter. N.B. All beekeepers there is a new Class this year Hive Record. In parallel with the Honey Show we are holding a members lunch for Members and one guest. We tried this last year and even with a cancelled honey show (The Judge pulled out you will recall) it was a great success. The schedule for the show has been sent out by post or e-mail, please at the very least let us know early if you are coming to the lunch, which is on the same day, Saturday 30th September.

We have also been recruiting for next year. It’s surprising how many people are interested in becoming beekeepers all they want is a little encouragement. Can I ask that all members make an effort of looking for new beekeepers and pointing them in the direction of Roger Hedgecoe . I find that a comment like “ my bees won’t like this weather” invariably grabs interest.