Letter to the (outgoing) Editor

I was saddened to read the Herts Bees Newsletter for February 2011 and to learn that I would not be receiving it any more.

I understand that producing the newsletter must be a significant, difficult and time-consuming task.  You are to be congratulated on the contribution that you have given as editor.  I also realise that there are other sources of information and means of communication.  You suggest that the newsletter has become superfluous.  Perhaps I could give you another view.

I am no longer a member of Hertfordshire Beekeepers Association, age and injury having forced me to give up keeping bees a few years ago.  However, neither I nor anyone else has removed my name from the circulation list of the Newsletter and I remain interested in the art (or science) and like to keep abreast of developments.  The Herts Bees Newsletter has been my main, indeed only regular, source of knowledge of current developments, as well as providing news of my old friends.

I find that beekeeping increasingly crops up in conversations with friends, acquaintances and strangers and in such conversations I can sometimes correct misunderstandings and sometimes encourage people to think seriously of keeping bees themselves.  The newsletter has helped me to do this.

So thank you for your efforts as editor. They have been appreciated by me.  I shall miss the newsletter in future.

Yours sincerely, Peter Thring