Dear Kennet BeeKeeper,
Happy New Year to all KBKA members. I shall look forward to seeing some of you on 1st January 2022 at 12.00 noon at the Horton Road Apiary for Oxalic, Mince pies and perhaps a glass of mulled wine. That’s tomorrow!
On the 29 December I posted out to all members our Kennet BeeKeepers Programme of events for 2022. I hope you find it a good guide to all that we are planning for the year. If for some reason you have not received your copy by next week please let me know.
Our first KBKA meeting of the year is Wednesday 5 January at 7.30 pm when we will have a zoom discussion about Wiltshire BeeKeepers changing to Charitable Status. This will effect KBKA as Wiltshire BKA are our umbrella Association and if they decide to become a charity we could also benefit from this by our members allowing us to collect gift aid from their subscriptions and also opens up other beneficial opportunities. Tony Awdry who has been the leading light on this for Wiltshire will be there to answer your questions along with our own Treasurer, Ceri Gosling and I would encourage as many of you as possible to join this important discussion.
Topic: Wiltshire BeeKeepers changing to Charitable Status
Time: January 5, 2021 07:15 pm join early meeting to start at 7.30 pm
(See Email for Zoom details)
Following on from this Wiltshire Beekeepers have their AGM on Thursday 20 January at 7.00 pm at Devizes Corn Exchange. This is an important meeting for WBKA as there are some sensible rule changes to be voted on to get the Association ready for Charitable Status should the membership so wish. Do get you there in person if you can, or join on zoom. The AGM is followed by a Winter Lecture to be given by Marin Anastasov NDB (National Diploma in Beekeeping) on Preparing for successful Spring Build Up (Colony Management) a talk not to be missed. This is to be a hybrid meeting (in person and Zoom). All the information has been sent to you by our secretary Elaine just before Christmas.
Richard Rickitt, one of our members and the co-editor of BeeCraft, would like you to know that he has a project coming up this summer and needs to get lots of photographs of bees and gardens. Would anyone be able to point him in the direction of gardens (yours or your friends or anyone else) that might allow him to photograph the following:
Bee-friendly planting schemes
Bee hives in attractive gardens
Wild bee hotels/nest sites
Hives on allotments
Veg plots companion planted with flowers
Wildflower lawns (not just un-mown lawns)
He might need to return a few times to get images at different parts of the season when different plants are flowering. If you can help do contact Richard on beesknees1972@gmail.com
On Wednesday 19 January Salisbury BKA has invited our membership to join a Zoom talk by Roger Pattison that well know natural beekeeper, who will be talking about improving our local bees by raising locally adapted queens – an important subject that will be of interest to many. I will forward the zoom details in details in due course, but for now it’s a date for your new diary.
David Brown tells me that there is a beekeeper living in Rowde with a large quantity of WBC kit and some commercial hives and other various bits and bobs including a settling tank and extractor, as well as a hive of bees in a commercial a box. Photos of the items and more information can be found on the “for sale” page of our website. If interested contact Mr John Land on email:- land_john@hotmail.com
BBKA are offering a number of training courses, for anyone interested the details can be found on the BBKA website, places are limited and are allocated on first come first served basis. This is the link https://www.bbka.org.uk/pages/shop/department/training-courses
And finally may I congratulate Susan Horton on becoming our KBKA SKITTLES Champion for the second time.
Here she is receiving the much prized trophy from our Chairman.
All best wishes and a Happy New Year
Robert Carpenter Turner, KBKA Chairman