PLYMOUTH BEEKEEPERS' Apiary Programme 2020
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PLYMOUTH BEEKEEPERS’ Apiary Programme 2020 FEBRUARY Sunday 2nd Module Study Group 10am Tuesday Talk by Olga Wojciechowska on "Food Hygiene and Honey 7.30pm 11th - What YOU Need to Know". Blindmans Wood Scout Centre Sunday 16th Module Study Group 10am Sunday 23rd Wax Extraction/Frame Making Session 10am MARCH Sunday 1st Improvers Meeting: What you should be doing/should not 10am have done Sunday 8th Beginners’ Course (1) – Chairman & Education Team 10am Sunday 15th Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support Sunday 22nd Beginners’ Course (2) 10am Sunday 29th Beginners’ Course (3) 10am APRIL Easter Sunday: 12th April Sunday 5th Improvers Meeting: Swarm Control/Frame Changing 10am Tuesday 7th Committee Meeting, Blindmans Wood Scout Centre 7pm Sunday 12th No Meeting – Easter Sunday Sunday 19th Beginners’ Course (4) 10am Sunday 26th Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support (+ extra practical for beginners if required) MAY (Bank Holidays: Mon. 4th + Mon. 25th) Sunday 3rd Improvers Meeting: Aggressive Bees/Queen Introduction 10am Sunday 10th Beginners’ Course (5) 10am Sunday 17th Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support (+ extra practical for beginners if required) Sunday 24th No meeting – Bank Holiday Weekend Sunday 31st Beginners’ Course (6) 10am 1 www.plymouthbeekeepers.btik.com JUNE Sunday 7th Improvers Meeting: The importance of nucs/ Swarm 10am control/the June gap/summer management Sunday 14th Beginners’ Course (7) 10am Sunday 21st Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support Sunday 28th Beginners’ Course (8) 10am JULY Sunday 5th Improvers Meeting: Bringing in the honey crop 10am Sunday 12th Beginners’ Course (9) 10am Sunday 19th Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support (+ extra practical for beginners if required) Sunday 26th Beginners Course (10) AUGUST (Bank Holiday: Mon. 31st) Sunday 2nd Improvers Meeting: Summer Management 10am Sunday 9th Beginners’ Course (11) 10am Sunday 16th Apiary Maintenance Morning//BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support Sunday 23rd Beginners’ Course (12) 10am Sunday 30th No Meeting - Bank Holiday Weekend SEPTEMBER Sunday 6th Improvers Meeting: Preparing for Winter 10am Sunday 13th Apiary Maintenance Morning/BBKA Basic Assessment 10am support OCTOBER Tuesday 13th Branch Honey Show, Blindmans Wood Scout Centre 7pm/doors open 6.30pm NOVEMBER Tuesday 17th AGM, Blindmans Wood Scout Centre DECEMBER Sunday 6th/13th Branch Christmas Lunch – TO BE CONFIRMED Blindmans Wood Scout Centre, Outland Road, Plymouth PL3 5TB Meetings will be held at the Branch Apiary Site, Lee Mill, Ivybridge unless advised otherwise Turn left off the A38 at Lee Mill and follow the signs for Tesco Drive past the Tesco entrance, take next right for Central Avenue on the industrial estate Drive down the hill of Central Avenue, looking for East Way on your right Drive along East Way, looking for Cadleigh Close on your left Drive into Cadleigh Close; the apiary site is behind the big iron gates of the Bandvulc tyre factory Park inside the gates, walk up the concrete path & the portacabin is on your right 2 www.plymouthbeekeepers.btik.com CHAIRMAN’S BLOG Hello Again, Now that we are in the depths of Winter I’m sure many of us are paying close attention to that all-important maintenance of equipment so that it’s all ready for the new season which will be upon us before we know it. Winter is also a good time to catch up with other branch members by attending our Winter meetings. Generally speaking, only about 25% of our registered members are regular attenders so it would be really good to see that figure improve for our February meeting. Speaking of which, it will be well worth attending this year, because we have a new speaker and a new topic, albeit one that all of us as honey producers should have at least a working knowledge about. Our speaker for the meeting on 11th February will be Olga Wojciechowska and her topic will be “Food Hygiene and Honey; what YOU need to know.” Olga completed the Beginners’ Course last year and she and her partner, Mark, are both enthusiastic new beekeepers. But Olga also has specialist knowledge about Food Hygiene and the rules that apply to us all as honey producers. It would be far better to listen and act on what Olga has to say than to one day receive an unwelcome knock on the door from the local authority Environmental Health Section or even the Trading Standards people. We all have legal obligations as honey producers and ignorance of the Law has never been a defence in Court. For those who prefer more precise language here is the legal doctrine in Latin: Ignorans legis non excusat. I don’t think you need even the most basic education in Latin to work that one out! I for one, am looking forward to hearing what Olga has to say. We had a very lively meeting on Tuesday 21 January at which your committee took some important decisions on developing the Branch’s capacity to deliver top-class training, new equipment for the Branch apiary and delivered a response to what I can only describe as bullying behaviour by another beekeeping group. For details of the latter, please see my article “Black Bees and Black Balls” elsewhere in this issue. 3 www.plymouthbeekeepers.btik.com Those who know me well will be aware that I’m not the biggest fan of hereditary monarchy; in fact had I been around during the English Civil War, I would almost certainly have fought on Cromwell’s side, despite the fact that he was a po-faced, puritan misery who hated the idea of people actually having fun. However, I couldn’t resist sharing this amusing pentaptych: I think it’s a novel way of remembering which marker pen to reach for when you find that new queen! All the best, Terry 4 www.plymouthbeekeepers.btik.com BLACK BEES AND BLACK BALLS First, some terminology Apis Mellifera Mellifera The Dark European Honey Bee Apis Mellifera Mellifera (variant) The British Black Bee1 The B4 Project A Community Interest Company2 BIPCo Bee Improvement for Cornwall BIBBA Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association You may be puzzled by the title of this article, so let’s start with a definition and a brief bit of history. The origin of the word is described here: Blackballing is a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot, where a white ball or ballot constitutes a vote in support and a black ball signifies opposition. The system is typically used where an organisation's rules provide that one or two objections, rather than an at-least-50% share of votes, are sufficient to defeat a proposition. Since the seventeenth century, these rules have commonly applied to elections to membership of many gentlemen's clubs and similar institutions such as Masonic lodges and fraternities. A large supply of black and white balls is provided for voters. Each voter audibly casts a single ball into the ballot box under cover of the box, or of a combination of a cloth and the box itself, so that observers can see who votes but not how they are voting. When all voting is complete, the box is opened and the balls displayed: all present can immediately see the result, without any means of knowing which members are objecting.3 1 aka the Cornish Black Bee (in Cornwall) and the Scottish Black Bee (in Scotland) 2 B4 Project is a Community Interest Company (CIC) representing a group of beekeepers whose aim is to protect the UK’s native dark honey bee, Apis Mellifera Mellifera. CICs were introduced in the UK in 2005 under the Companies Act 2004 3 Wikipedia 5 www.plymouthbeekeepers.btik.com The word ‘ballot’ is Italian for small ball, and the words ballot and ballot box have been used for decades in the context of elections to political office, even though voting is now done by marking a cross on the ballot paper. By now, you are probably wondering what all this has got to do with beekeeping: well do please read on. You will know that in 2017 a group of beekeepers set up what was called England’s first native honeybee reserve. The Black Bee Reserve was launched in Mount Edgcumbe Park in South-East Cornwall. This followed the identification by the B4 Project of an almost pure and distinctive population of black bees on the Rame Peninsula. The aim of the Mount Edgcumbe project was to help foster the perseveration of the Black Bee in Cornwall. Jean French, our Branch Secretary, decided to find out a bit more about the progress of the project, so late last year she attempted to join their Facebook Group. Now I’m a simple soul, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that if the Branch Secretary of a BBKA-affiliated beekeeping organisation applies to join a group of this nature, then he or she should be welcomed with open arms. But that was not the case: Jean was blackballed. I’ll reiterate that: the elected Branch Secretary of a BBKA- affiliated Branch, who out of pure interest, attempted to join a Facebook group dedicated to one particular aspect of beekeeping, was blackballed! I know not who made the decision to blackball our Branch Secretary (although I can hazard a guess) but I, and your Branch Committee, regard it as a gross insult to our Branch. I am aware that some members of our Branch are associated with the Mount Edgcumbe project, but from the point of its inception to date, at no time did anyone from B4 Project or the Mount Edgcumbe group make any attempt to contact Plymouth Branch of DBKA to discuss with us the aims of their project or ways in which our Branch could help them.