The SBA's AGM was held in Perth today. I'd have given you live updates only it seemed rude sitting down the front typing into a Blackberry while folk spoke to the assembled masses.

At the EGM before the AGM the results of the ballot on the dissolution of the old SBA and the formation of a new SCIO-compliant SBA was revealed. Not even the President knew the outcome until he opened an envelope in front of us all. An impressive 61% of the membership responded and overwhelmingly voted yes. Now the Executive will submit their new constitution to the charity regulator, OSCR, and see whether or not they agree it meets the requirements.

Yes: 781
No: 32
Spoiled and ineligible (late) papers: 17

Main points from the AGM:

- Phil McA came to the end of his three year term and handed over the Presidency to Bron.
- Tony Harris takes over from Bron as secretary
- Alan Riach is now Vice-President
- I'm back as Bee Health guy
- Phil Moss will take over editorship from Nigel in July
- the Northen Area Rep position is now vacant.

It was a professional and respectful meeting without any of the rancour of the 2013 AGM. Great to see everyone pulling in the same direction.

Some other things that emerged during the day. Magnus is trying to organise the Scottish participation in a citizen science project related to the European project COLOSS via the University of Gratz. An estimate of the diversity of pollen bees are collecting across Europe. Ewan from Aberdeen University gave us an update on progress with a new approach to Varroa treatment using RNAi, knocking out essential genes very specifically in Varroa. We also discussed some recent activity from some bee entrepreneurs, sadly, so we heard, people who have got into beekeeping enterprise without knowing enough about beekeeping themselves yet who are placing hives in various sensitive locations and encouraging more people into beekeeping without being able to offer adequate support. No, I'm not saying who they are or what was said by whom, but it was pointed out that the SBA should be more proactive trying to protect people from inappropriate activity related to beekeeping. There was also discussion of the issues some local associations face with the tide of new beekeepers and the shortage of experienced beekeepers to help them raise their game.