burrowsnbka

Talks for Winter 2025-26

These are all held at Newent Community Centre, [Glebe Chapel], Ross Road
NEWENT GL18 1BD. ///delivers.snuggled.quietly

Our regular series of presentations on the last Thursday night of each month. The range of topics is varied, and we try to keep them relevant and entertaining for our members of all ages and experience levels. The meetings may be particularly useful to members taking on the Beginners’ Course both as information and an opportunity to meet our other members and discuss the presentation and general beekeeping issues.

Thursday November 27th 2025. The first of our Winter Talks – Richard Rickitt of Bee Craft will talk on “Trees and Bees”.

Thursday January 29th 2026. Our second talk – Richard Comont of Bumblebee Conservation Trust will talk on “Bumblebees v Honeybees”.

Thursday February 26th 2026. Our third talk – Steve Riley of Westerham Beekeepers will talk on “Varroa Resistance through Bee Improvement”.

Thursday March 26th 2026. Our fourth talk – Marin Anastasov of Gloucestershire Beekeepers will talk on“Aspects of Bee Diseases”.

NBKA Honey Show at Newent Community Centre Thursday Sept. 28th 2023 at 7:30pm

Our unique annual opportunity to show how our beekeeping is rewarded and exchange ideas about how we take advantage of our bees.

This is a fun occasion with an element of serious comment on our entries by a qualified judge. There are points available – and that means prizes too!

Please see the latest (September) Newsletter for the Schedule of Classes. We look forward to seeing you there and comparing our honey products.

NBKA AGM October 26th at Newent Community Centre 7:30pm

This is open to all members and prospective members and you are encouraged to come and learn about our activities during the past year, our status as an association and plans for the coming year.

If you are interested in taking an active role (or more active role) in the running of the NBKA this is your opportunity to come and talk to the current committee and learn how we share the tasks necessary to keep the association active, relevant, and providing a service to local beekeepers.

Apart from our social plans the next major event in 2024 is hosting the annual GBKA Honey Show and AGM. Plans for this are advancing, but we will need more volunteer helpers towards and on the day (Saturday 24th February.)

Improvers Course 2023

Everyone is welcome to join us for a series of interactive ‘Improvers’ sessions starting in February.
The sessions will cover a wide range of topics of interest to the practical beekeeper who is either simply taking the next steps, or wanting to challenge themselves with something new.

Feb 27 – Reading the Hive
Mar 6 – Disease and comb change
Mar 13 – Honey & Wax
Mar 20 – Swarming
Mar 27 – Queen rearing

Your Bees This Winter

Several of our beekeepers are reporting the loss of colonies due to the recent spells of cold weather.

Have you lost a colony (colonies)?

In order to gauge the severity of the problem, and try to define the most probably causes of colony loss we would like to hear from you.

Please email newentbees@googlemail.com or burrowsadrianj@gmail.com indicating how many colonies you keep and how many have died. One of us will follow up with a request for further details. We will hope to identify a major cause and (possibly) methods to avoid losses in future years.