The Buzz from the Branch News Letter – March

Dear Member,
Next meeting: Yes we are meeting next week.
Kilmington Village Hall Thursday 6th March 7.30pm .
With thanks to some hasty rearrangement we are pleased to let you know that we will now hear from Judith Norman from DBKA.
The Asian Hornet remains a growing concern for us all. Judith’s talk : “Preparing ourselves for an invasion” will include issues such as effective monitoring, working effectively with NBU, reducing false alarms and basic tracking. This is a good opportunity for members who are verifiers for the AH (which is all our swarm collectors plus others) to hear up to date information.
We look forward to seeing you all.

Library 📚
Simon will be attending with our usual blue library boxes. Please take time to browse the literature and if you have had loans for more than a couple of months please return them on 6th March at the meeting. We rely on you to be mindful of loaned books so we can keep track of them. Thank you.

Sugar collection 🪣 🪣
Message from Rhiannon (rhiannonhodson1@gmail.com) to please order your sugar. She currently has no orders, so think ahead and plan your feeding requirements and please get your name on the list.
ALSO
Recent inclement weather has caused the empty sugar buckets to go travelling along the decking and fly off, get wet etc. As a result, you will shortly see a wheelie bin installed beside the ramp. PLEASE PUT THE EMPTY BUCKETS FROM NOW ON INSIDE THE WHEELIE BIN AND CLOSE THE LID. THANK YOU.

A bit of history – how about this?
Having been discussing hive components of late with our beginners, Keith happened to come across some branch records, in particular an order for equipment back in 2009.
3 brood boxes £37
6 supers £66
4 floors £52
3 rooves £20
Same shopping list in 2025 reads:
3 brood boxes £203
6 supers £300
4 floors £160
3 rooves £195
A bit of a difference you could say!

Branch news:
We’ve had a great response for the Basic training and six members are now going forward with this.
The lime tree commemorating 150 years of BBKA is now planted in the apiary hedge.
We have a new storage unit for the branch lawn mower, but we still need more volunteers to push it please !!!!!!!!

IMPROVERS SESSIONS – these will be held at the beeshed on 17th May and 31st May. The topic is bee health and Nick will be letting us know the details in due course.

Swarm Collectors – I do feel like a broken record, but we still need swarm collectors in the Sidmouth, Sidbury and Lyme Regis areas in particular. But everywhere in our branch area could do with more volunteers. Our swarm co ordinator Stan Wroe has set up a good system via WhatsApp which keeps our swarm collectors in touch during the season and he’d be delighted to have more participants in the scheme.

Reminder: Our last winter meeting at Kilmington is April 3rd and the subject is wax moth with Zoe Mack and James Pearce from the Exeter University apiary.

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