North Herts news by Christine Phillips

At our last meeting Roger Patterson, in his talk “A New Approach to Beekeeping” described his method of maintaining a support colony for every four hives in an apiary. This could be used to provide a replacement queen or extra brood or stores – whatever is needed – and seems a good plan, although the talk was a little confusing, especially for newer members and beginners.

Beginners evening

Graham will be holding a beginners evening at Howgills at 7.30pm on March 2nd. All beginners are welcome and there is no charge.

AGM

The AGM will be on March 16th (sorry it said February 16th in the last newsletter) at Howgills starting at 7.45pm with last year's minutes available from 7.30pm. There will also be a table for second-hand equipment sales and after the tea-break the N. Herts famous (infamous?) honey tasting so please come along bringing a jar of honey and any beekeeping bits and pieces no longer needed.

Cups

If you were one of the winners last year or in previous years and still have a cup gathering dust somewhere PLEASE RETURN YOUR CUP in time for the AGM.

April meeting

April 20th will be our last indoor meeting of the winter. Our topics will be record keeping and swarm control. Andy Johnston has kindly agreed to talk to us about the former (how many of us keep adequate records, including a vetinary medicines record kept for five years?)

As for swarming, some bees decided to be up and off in April last year. Maybe they will be a little later in 2010 but we need to be prepared, so come with suggestions, advice, old wives tales, myths or magic and we can have a discussion on the best methods of thwarting their natural instincts.

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