February 2010

Hertfordshire Beekeepers Association AGM - 27th March 2010

The AGM will be held on Saturday 27th March 2010 at the Tewin Memorial Hall, 11a Lower Green, Tewin, Welwyn, Herts, AL6 0JX. The agenda and speakers will appear in the next edition of Herts Bees. Please put the date in your diary.

Editorial by Paul Cooper

A belated happy new year to you and your bees.

The controversial issue that was published in the first version and then removed from the second version of the December 2009 newsletter was discussed at length at the HBKA Exec meeting on the 12th January.  It has been decided that Herts Bees will not get drawn into national issues such as, for example, the debate that can be summarised as beekeeping using "natural, chemical-free" methods vs beekeeping using "approved treatments for bee diseases", especially where they are critical of the BBKA of which we are all members. If you are interested then there are plenty of websites available to follow some of the more "controversial" beekeeping methods but it is not the place of Herts Bees to promote them.

Herts Bees will focus on local issues and on giving advice and guidance to beekeepers, especially our newer members. I will occasionally throw in other articles (such as the one below from BBC News) where the content is relevant and newsworthy but is clearly not just promoting a particular campaign.

The original article did cause Dr Juliet Osborne of Rothamsted to write an email to me strongly defending the research work that they are doing. I want to take this opportunity to thank her for the response and to say that as Hertfordshire's local bee research centre, HBKA members should show their support for the work at Rothamsted and make their Open Weekend a success by going along on 22nd / 23rd May and talking to her team. 

And now to the bees.  It has been a long a cold winter and so the winter stores will be depleted. Now is the time to think about giving them a spring boost. I have found that a block of candy over the feed hole of the crown board is consumed rapidly if stores are low or if there is too much solid oilseed rape honey. There was a recipe in a recent Bee Craft magazine that works for me and I have just added it to the Tips section of this website.

The Herts Bees calendar is looking a little empty so please send me your meeting dates for the year and I will update it.

Don't forget the AGM on the 27th March.  See you there.