A Hertfordshire event not to be missed....the Spring Convention

Many of the exhibitors will be offering special deals on orders made before the show.  If you’d like to hear about these, please send your email address to John Palombo : secretary@hertsbees.org.uk

Venue

Programme

12:30	Doors open
1:00	HBKA AGM
2:00	Doug Brown
3:00	Liz Samuelson
4:00	Wally Thrale
5:00	Close

Speakers

	Doug Brown has been keeping bees in Cambridgeshire for 14 years.  He has long been active in the Cambridgeshire Beekeepers Association, running the newsletter and holding the posts of Vice Chairman and Chairman.  In 2011 Doug was elected to be a Trustee of the BBKA and in the subsequent 4 years went on to hold the posts of Vice Chairman and Chairman.  Doug stood down as Chairman in January of this year but remains a Trustee of BBKA and is the lead Trustee for the Technical and Environment Committee.  Doug will be sharing his thoughts and experiences on the “interesting times” that the BBKA is going through at the moment and where that might lead the Association in the future.
	Liz Samuelson did her undergraduate degree at Sussex, where she worked at the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects under Francis Ratnieks. She then moved to Royal Holloway, University of London to do a Masters and a PhD with supervision from Dr Elli Leadbeater. She will be talking about the Bees in the City project, an ongoing study looking at the effects of urbanisation on honeybee health and behaviour. This talk will present some preliminary findings from pollen and parasite samples that have been collected from several apiaries around the South East, including a number in Hertfordshire.
	Wally Thrale started keeping bees in 1988 on a small scale but gradually increased numbers over the years. When he retired from his ‘day job’ seven years ago he decided to become a semi commercial beekeeper, so beekeeping now takes up a lot of his spare time in the summer months.  Wally will be talking about the EARS project (Eastern Associations Research Studentship) which came out one of the annual Regional Bee Inspector meetings. It allows individual Associations to group together to provide sufficient money to apply for a BBSRC grant. As a result of this, one PhD project is now complete, a second is part way through and a third is now being considered.