todays news

[Calum]

What about the rest of you?

It is a slippery slope. Before you know it you'll be running forums and spending your days in meetings with government.

lol, thanks, yes the rest of me too.
Now trying to negotiate a site for our beekeeper training from the local government (they can shine/greenwash a bit in the newspaper by letting us infest a scrap of land)
want to try to set up beekeeping lessons for refugees in the area as a form of therapy, and to help them meet people from the community/ intergrate.
and maybe revamp the association website with more information....

[gavin]

Brilliant ideas, particularly like the refugees idea. And I'm glad that they have taken you on intact ...

C4U - glad you got out alive. I think that one them reserved his feistiness for seeing me on Saturday at the SBA AGM.

Yesterday on the way to the Cup Final (thanks to me being a passenger rather than driver) I saw my first willow trees of the season in full bloom near that patch of land that tends to flood east of Auchterarder. I always take that as a sign that spring has finally arrived, more or less.

[Calluna4u]

C4U - glad you got out alive. I think that one them reserved his feistiness for seeing me on Saturday at the SBA AGM.

Puts on angelic hat and innocent look................ I wonder who you mean Gavin. Plainly I have no idea.

Maybe I got them fired up on Friday night about a particular topic of a coleopteran nature...........sorry!

Nice about the willows though. I have over 100 hives wintering not a country mile from that very spot...if its the same one. Bottom of Cairnie Braes where the A9 crosses the Earn.

Off in an hour or so headed south. Got a talk near Bristol tonight (South Gloucs BKA) then back to Cirencester, where we have about 180 colonies wintering on an estate nearby.

[gavin]

Bottom of Cairnie Braes where the A9 crosses the Earn.

That's the place. Didn't spot them again when passing yesterday but it is not so easy when you're driving. (yes, football again - don't ask!) Willows, like sycamore and some other trees, tend to have different individual flowering times rather than everything coming in one rush. A reasonable strategy when your pollination is done by selective far-flying insects.

Hope you were spreading the gospel in Gloucs that we're heading for a new era in beekeeping where the watch-words are sustainability, biosecurity, self-reliance, and home production of stocks?

[Jon]

Hope you were spreading the gospel in Gloucs that we're heading for a new era in beekeeping where the watch-words are sustainability, biosecurity, self-reliance, and home production of stocks?

That and irony!

[Calluna4u]

Hope you were spreading the gospel in Gloucs that we're heading for a new era in beekeeping where the watch-words are sustainability, biosecurity, self-reliance, and home production of stocks?

Lol. You would think that, in all the years it has been thought of, that if it was truly feasible it would have been done long ago. Your list illustrates the main reason it has not been done. All good secure sounding words...................but without one other word added in it is eternally doomed to either failure, or bees to be essentially an amateur conservation project..................viability. It has just not been a viable option, except at amateur level. If it can be made viable then there is a chance, until then it just an enthusiasts dream.

Jolanta was there too, and we DID tell them as a footnote to the talk, about the queens and nucs project. We were perfectly frank about what the project was, and what it was not. When we said it was NOT a black bee breeding project the gasp from the hall was audible, closely followed by a collective 'thank god for that!'. Seems they too just wanted sound working bees rather than any special race, and most certainly not further evangelisation about A.m.m. As you very well know it has a place in our work, but we most definitely do not want it pure.

Sunday 15th June, put it in your diary to come up to my place Gavin. That's the date of the CABA bus trip. Your help will be most welcome as I got a note from Mhairi yesterday to say demand is huge for places.

[gavin]

You show me yours and I'll show you mine!

Just heading off to Ulster (now that the eclipse is nearly safely out of the way ).

[Jon]

Good view of the eclipse in Belfast.

[GRIZZLY]

Good view of the eclipse in Belfast.

Luck of the Irish !., caught a glimpse just as the clouds thinned a bit (10 seconds worth ) Went quite dusky tho'. Bees have been flying well the last couple of days with stacks of pollen coming in which is a welcome sight.

[mbc]

It has just not been a viable option, except at amateur level. If it can be made viable then there is a chance, until then it just an enthusiasts dream.

I would say there are enough of us doing it to prove it is viable, maybe no one on your level Calluna, but there are plenty of smaller operations which do not buy in bees or queens, ever, and yet they remain in business and somehow the crazed enthusiasts at the helm make a living.
I would agree that many more colonies can be managed if replacement bees are sourced from outside, but the rewards for being flexible about seasonal numbers and raising ones own replacement stock are long term imho.

Magic eclipse here, seen through a river fog, no need for fancy protective glasses.