Craig y Don Community Centre
A talk by Jonathan Garratt our Seasonal Bee Inspector, at Craig y Don Community Centre. Welcome tea and coffee from 7.20pm. Talk starts at 7.40pm.

So, your bees have come through the winter and they are building up well.  What steps should we be taking now to increase the chances of a bumper honey harvest?  Come to the talk and find out, or stay at home and be happy with half-filled supers.

Plus… an update on Exotic Pests—Asian Hornets and Small hive beetle.

See here for directions.

This talk replaces one by Frank Gellatly, RBI for Wales, who will now be visiting us in June.

Asian Hornets

Click here to see FERA’s Action Plan for dealing with Asian Hornets. This link provides masses of information.  Asian Hornets are expected to arrive in the UK within the next two years. Be prepared!

Saturday 5th May—Apiary meeting

Tal y Cafn at 2.30pm.

Coming soon—Sycamore honey.

Be in time with your supers.  Sycamore is the best honey for drawing out supers of new foundation.

Contact Chris Clarke for supplies of frames and foundation, or if you wish to move hives to the oil seed rape at Bodelwyddan, now in flower.

Enjoy your beekeeping!

Peter McFadden

Our Apiary Meetings start at Tal y Cafn on Easter Saturday 7th April at 2.30pm. We have four National hives and two WBC hives there, and we will be spring cleaning the hives, checking that the queen is laying well, checking the stores and assessing the colonies. We hope you can attend. Bee suits and gloves are available for newcomers. Bring clean wellies.
See website under Association/Meetings for directions.

Frames and foundation

Are on sale from Chris Clarke. Order by Tuesday to collect at Tyn y Coed, or collect from Chris’s house near Abergele.

Saturday 14th April—Beekeeping Taster Day

Rowen Memorial Hall and Tal y Cafn. More details are here.

Hive records

We recommend you keep good hive records. Feel free to use and adapt this example record card. Keep it in the hive in a plastic wallet.

Saturday 7th April—Apiary meeting 1

Tal y Cafn at 2.30pm.

Saturday 14th April—Taster Day

Rowen Memorial Hall and Tal y Cafn Apiary.
Nearly full. See website under Courses.

Sat / Sun June 23rd and 24th—South Clwyd BKA Queen rearing course

This is a popular course that is open to all, book early. More details are here.

A UNIQUE beekeeping centre has been given the official go-ahead this week after securing £200,000 of funding.

The groundbreaking National Beekeeping Centre for Wales (NBCW) will help preserve and enhance local and national beekeeping, and aims to help arrest a potentially disastrous decline in honeybee numbers. Once open, the innovative scheme will combine visitor facilities including a “hands-on” apiary with training courses and support for practical beekeeping research, so becoming the only project of its kind in Wales.

The main centre aims to attract up to 25,000 visitors a year and will form part of the new £6.5m Bodnant Food Centre at Furnace Farm in the Conwy Valley.

First Minister Carwyn Jones dropped into the centre on Friday to hear more about the project and see progress being made. NBCW will seek to develop practical research projects with beekeepers and academic researchers within Wales.

The Centre will also develop its range of training courses at the Henfaes Research Farm, a Bangor University facility at Abergwyngregyn. A further visitor facility is being developed in conjunction with the Snowdonia Society at Tŷ Hyll near Capel Curig and will include queen bee mating hives and woodland gardens to provide examples of the ideal bee habitat.

Bee-related produce, including honey and wax products, will retail from the Tŷ Hyll and Bodnant sites.

Funding for NBCW has mainly come through the Conwy Rural Partnership under the Axis3 Environment theme of the Rural Development Plan for Wales. Other funders include Environment Wales, Snowdonia National Park CAE Fund, South Clwyd Beekeeper’s Association and the Welsh Beekeepers’ Association – John Hall legacy.

Conwy Beekeepers’ Association is another financial contributor, and has played a key role in bringing the ambitious project to the county. The 150-member strong Association successfully relaunched the 700-year-old Conwy Honey and Seed Royal Charter fairs in the 1990s. This strong relationship between Conwy and the beekeeping fraternity meant that the Furnace Farm development was the ideal location for Wales’s national centre.

NBCW spokesman Pete Barrar said: “A lot of work has already gone into planning this ambitious scheme, but it’s only now with all the funding in place that we feel we can really celebrate. We’re delighted that it’s all systems go and we’re looking forward to getting everything in place ready for our grand opening in May.”
The visitor centre is planned to open at the same time as the Bodnant Welsh Food Centre.

As well as two members of staff, NBCW aims to recruit 20 volunteers in 2012 and increase that to approximately 30 in 2013. The project will become self-sufficient after 2013. Operated through a non-profit-making Community Interest Company, all income will be invested back into scheme.

It will seek to boost the Welsh economy by supporting existing beekeepers and attracting new people to beekeeping, including farmers and landowners.

Tuesday 28th February—”Seven ways to…”

Craig y Don Community Centre
Seven pieces of beekeeping equipment and how to get the best out of them. Jo Schup is a Master Beekeeper and Education Officer of North Shropshire BKA, visiting us for the first time. Do try to attend.

National Beekeeping Centre Wales

Volunteers’ meeting on Thursday 23rd February at Henfaes at 7pm. Talk by Pete Barrar on Bees and Beekeeping in the Conwy Valley on Friday 24th February at Royal Oak Hotel, Betws y Coed at 7pm.
See www.beeswales.co.uk for details.

Plus…

Tuesday 21st February—The return of the beaver to Wales?

Seion Chapel, Rowen, Conwy Valley
Conwy Valley Civic Society talk at 7.30pm. A talk by Adrian Lloyd-Jones, Wildlife Trust Wales. Open to all. Parking on street. See http://beaverinfo.org/index.html and http://www.conwy-valley-civic-soc.org/

Yes, we’ll soon be back with the bees!
Best wishes.
Peter McFadden

Saturday 14th April
This is filling up well, thanks to our top of the list presence on Google. Please spread the word. The taster days are led by Seasonal Bee Inpsector Jonathan Garratt. Good luck Jonathan!

Training for trainers weekend

WBKA are holding a train the trainers weekend on 25th and 26th February. Contact the association secretary for more details.

Website

Bee collecting water

We are looking for more info for the Conwy BKA website: Pictures, anecdotes, honey recipes, beekeeping hints and tips etc.

Here is a picture of a bee collecting warm water, January 2012 by member Barry Griffiths.

Tuesday 31st January—CBKA Annual General Meeting

Craig y Don Community Centre
Welcome tea / coffee from 7.20pm, meeting starts at 7.40pm.  This is usually our best-attended meeting of the year, and it will be your last chance to renew your subs at the reduced rate.

Conwy BKA committee

Would you like to become a committee member?  Please apply by 25th January.

We meet every two months at each others houses, and our committee meetings are usually fairly good-natured.

The 2011 committee consists of Chair Kath McNulty, Vice Chair (vacant), Treasurer David Pitcher, Secretary Peter McFadden; and nine committee members:  Hazel Jones, Nicholas Richter, Chris Clarke, Lizzie Hudson, John Humphreys, Mike Kyle, Wesley Evans, Ruth Bethell and Dennis Adams. All of the committee are offering themselves for re-election.

We encourage committee members to take on an active role, including:

• Tal y Cafn apiary, gardening and hive work.
• Instructing at apiary meetings
• Buying and selling frames, foundation, varroa treatments etc.
• Membership admin
• Hire of extractors
• Taster day admin
• Refreshments at meetings
• Attending WBKA meetings
• Nucs for new members scheme
• Liaison with National Beekeeping Centre Wales
• Minutes secretary

Website management and arranging our speakers are done by non-committee members Tim Radford and Geoff Critchley.

The AGM will be followed by a Question and Answer session.

Tuesday 17th January—Welsh honey bee initiative

Capel Curig Community Centre, 4pm to 7pm
Drop-in community information session for the new Tŷ Hyll Welsh honey bee initiative. Mulled wine and mince pies!

25th and 26th February—WBKA Beekeeping Training Weekend

Royal Welsh Showground, Llanelwedd
Contact the CBKA secretary for details and to book a place.

Oxalic acid treatment

The following method is suitable for colonies on brood and a half.  It avoids separating the two boxes, which can result in squashing bees, especially in a mild winter, when the bees are in a loose cluster.

Warning. Oxalic acid mixed with syrup is poisonous.  Wear rubber gloves when handling it.  Dispose of any leftover product sensibly.

Carefully remove the crown board and any top insulation.

• Shine a torch down into the hive and count the number of seams of bees in the bottom box, six for example.
• Count the number of seams of bees in the top box, four for example.
• Total seams of bees = six, not ten.   The four seams in the top box are a continuation of the seams in the bottom box.
• Using a 50mm syringe, trickle oxalic acid, approx 5ml per seam, enough for six seams of bees, between the frames of the top box.
• Refit crown board and any top insulation.
• Assess weight of hive.
• Close up hive.

Note: Frame/bees/frame/bees/frame = Two seams of bees.   You are counting bees not frames.

Information provided by Geoff Critchley, 29/12/2011.

Contact Chris Clarke  to order Oxalic Acid for collection at the AGM.

What does the Bee Project consist of? How can local beekeepers support the project? Do come along and find out.

The Info session is organized by the Snowdonia Society.

Click here for an introduction to The Bee Project.

We hope you and your bees are wintering well.  Here is our programme for the rest of the winter.  Indoor meetings will be held at Craig y Don Community Centre.

Saturday 7th January—Winter Apiary meeting

Tal y Cafn
Meet the bees at 2pm and treat them with oxalic acid to knock down varroa mites, and a quick assessment of the colonies.

Tuesday 31st January—Annual General Meeting

Tuesday 28th February—”Seven ways to…”

Jo Schup, Shropshire
Seven useful pieces of beekeeping equipment, and how to get the best out of them.

Tuesday 27th March—Beekeeping in Cyprus

Geoff Critchley

Tuesday 24th April—Disease Recognition

Frank Gellatly, Regional Bee Inspector for Wales

Wednesday 21st December—Christmas Farmers’ Market

Conwy RSPB, 9am to 1pm

Next Talk – Tuesday 29th November

Craig y Don Community Centre, 7.20pm tea and coffee for a 7.40pm start.
Wally Shaw, Anglesey BKA, will give a talk on Beekeeping in New Zealand, based on three recent visits there. This is beekeeping on a big scale, with beekeepers running 800 hives single-handed. How do they do it? ( I struggle with 20 hives). Chasing the manuka, pollinating kiwi fruit, supering / requeening / treating 800 hives. How is it done and what can we learn from their methods? Come to Wally’s talk and find out.

New benefits for members

Conwy BKA offers you a terrific range of benefits. See here for a list.

Communal heather press

We have also bought a communal Thorne’s heather honey press. Click here to read all about getting heather honey. These purchases were funded by the Conwy Agri-Foods project.

Our two communal honey extractor kits have been well-used this summer, with 17 bookings. Many thanks to Hazel Jones for running the scheme. We’d welcome your suggestions on any other new communal facilities.

Hope to see you on the 29th. You can be sure of a warm welcome.

Peter McFadden
Secretary