Our Education Officer, Alan Baxter, has set up a teaching apiary in a private field located between Titchfield and Catisfield.
There are up to 10 colonies in various stages of development, plus a selection of Nucs. A shed has been installed and there are tables, chairs and a gazebo for the spring and summer months.
A colony donated to the Association by a former member is also housed at the apiary.
A series of events, workshops and training sessions is planned for the 2025 beekeeping season including:
- Basic Assessment Preparation
- Honey Bee Health Certificate Preparation
- Mentoring for New Beekeepers
- Catching and Dealing with Swarms
- Queen Rearing Made Simple
- Making up nucs
- Introducing new queens
- Uniting colonies
- Swarm Prevention and Control
- How to do a Health Inspection
- Varroa monitoring and treatment
- Recognising and Dealing with Problems such as drone laying queens and laying workers
- Winter preparation and how to avoid winter losses
Many of the above will be part of the routine weekly inspections and manipulations which are open to members to watch and practice themselves.
Information about forthcoming events will be published weekly on this website page and the FDBKA Facebook group. A dedicated FDBKA WhatsApp Group can also be joined by contacting Alan Baxter via EMAIL.
Latest News – Alan has requested applications for the BBKA Basic Assessment to be in by end of April which can be done by contacting him via EMAIL.
The next session at the apiary is on Sunday 26th April (depending on weather), time to be confirmed & Alan looks forward to seeing you there!
13-04-25
Excellent turnout at the Teaching Apiary today for all 3 sessions despite the threat of rain. We found lots to learn in the colonies we inspected, including finding a drone laying queen which we culled: after an hour to let them know they were queenless, we gave the colony a frame of eggs and young larvae. These came from the colony we shook swarmed 2 weeks ago and is now roaring away on new clean comb.
02-04-25
The Shook Swarm Colony is busy drawing out comb. The queen was seen but we didn’t spend much time inspecting due to the very cold wind so no eggs seen. Alan will treat them with Oxilic Acid before any brood is capped to get rid of varroa. There are more nurse bees than foragers so a sachet of Candipollen was added to give the bees a protein boost.
The colony was calm and good tempered and a pleasure to work with.
30-03-25
The colony donated to the association was Shook Swarmed due to all the frames being rotten, fragile and not fit for purpose.
The adjacent video shows the colony the following day enjoying the morning sunshine.
The exercise was completed by putting in the entrance reducer and feeding to assist the bees with drawing out foundation.