Members

The Buzz from the Branch News Letter – February 2026

Dear Member,
🐝🐝Firstly a warm welcome to all our beginners for this year who begin their course on 7th February. We look forward to getting to know you.🐝🐝

Dates
David Packham and his Varroa talk is next up remember. Thursday February 5th. 7.30pm Kilmington Village Hall. We look forward to seeing you.
(Please note this replaces the original talk from Alan Baxter which unfortunately could not take place.)

YLAH

Yellow Legged Asian Hornet
A reminder that YLAH has reached West Dorset just 19 miles from Axminster. The time approaches when we need to up our game.
The branch has done alot of work over the last two years at our local shows with displays, exhibits and face to face educating the public about the Asian Hornet. BBKA has already acknowledged the value of Joe Public in reporting sightings. Thanks must go to Kevin Jackson for his contributions as co ordinator for gathering our resources and putting in great effort for the above.

Sadly Kevin is stepping down from his role but I am pleased to say that Milly Frankpitt who has worked alongside Kevin up to now, is now is taking over the role and becomes our branch YLAH Co ordinator. You will be hearing more from Milly as the year progresses and she gets into her stride. Please give her your support.

As a first step and I do seem to repeat myself but we still need MORE VERIFIERS : We need verifiers across East Devon due to the extent of our geographical spread. Please let me know if you will be happy to act as a verifier. This just means you might be contacted to check/verify/confirm any sighting of an Asian Hornet, (either alive or a photograph) so that time isn’t wasted when the insect is reported as seen. We need to collect as many names as possible and this is one thing you can all contribute to. You may never be called upon but if we have a network in place then we have the means.

BBKA NEWS (Three items worthy of a mention in the February edition)

• YLAH prevention strategy: key changes announced page 5.

• pages 18-19 includes a good explanatory piece on the BBKA member hub. Worth spending some time consulting it and get to know your way around.

• Varroa resistance pages 26-27 may raise questions you’d like to put to David Packham next Thursday.

Branch Secretary. The door is still open for anyone wanting to take up my role. Our 2026 AGM is now ten months away when I intend to step down. Please make contact if you want to know more about the role. 📚✍️📞🖋️📋🗓️🗂️💻 With a number of changes already in place we are future proofing East Devon branch. Val🐝

ALERT
ANYONE WITH CAUSE TO VISIT THE BEESHED IN WET WEATHER TAKE EXTRA CARE ON THE DECKING. WHEN WET IT CAN BE VERY SLIPPERY.

Huge thanks to Sue Stokes for running the skep workshop over last two Sundays. Photos next month.

Andy Potter thought you might find this item on honey adulteration interesting : https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3/episodes/player

Val🐝

Contacts:

Chair: Alasdair Bruce. chair24@edbk.co.uk

Treasurer: Keith Bone. charandale@gmail.com

Secretary: Val Bone. val.valbone@gmail.com

Swarms: Stan Wroe. stanwroe@aol.com

YLAH: Milly Frankpitt 07739 658 585 amelia.frankpitt@gmail.co