NEWS – Newent Branch of Gloucestershire Beekeepers

Bees for Development Charity

The Bees for Development Big Give Christmas campaign runs from Tuesday 2 December – Tuesday 9 December 2025. During this week only, your money is worth double the value of what you donate: £5 becomes £10, £50 becomes £100, £5,000 becomes £10,000! This week is your chance to make DOUBLE the difference by giving 300 people with disabilities in Uganda and Ghana the tools, skills, and confidence to transform their lives through beekeeping. Please help us to make life better with bees and donate at Help Make Beekeeping Disability Inclusive – Big Give

We are fundraising to provide beekeeping training to people living with disability in Uganda and Ghana, empowering them to make a living and earn respect. Make a donation between 2–9 December 2025 and all donations will be doubled!

12% of Ugandans and 8% of Ghanaians have a disability. Employment opportunities are few and difficult to access and people with disability often face huge social, cultural and physical barriers and suffer chronic poverty.

Beekeeping provides a way for people to earn an income. It also provides good nutrition and medicine, helps address social inclusion and encourages people to protect their environment.

🐝 Develop disability inclusive training for 300 beekeepers including men, women and youth from Uganda and Ghana
🌟 Train bee champions to provide beekeeping mentorship
🌍 Scale up and share our successful Ugandan disability inclusive beekeeping model with Ghana.

Please do save the date – you can be confident that your money will reach the people who need it most, read more details HERE

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Winter Feed Orders

The club can offer substantial discounts by coordinating a bulk order for winter feeds (Syrup / Fondant.) Please order before July 2nd to take advantage.

Tony (our Treasurer) has been able to negotiate what he thinks you will find are highly competitive quotes.
Fondant comes in 12.5kg blocks and can be used as one lump in the autumn or kept for late winter/spring use as required. The Invertbee syrup comes in 14kg plastic drums, this doesn’t ferment and can be used over the winter if needed.
The price of fondant this year is £16.55 per 12.5kg block and the Invertbee syrup is £21.62 per 14kg drum.
Please follow the link below to our Stripe payment facility to place your order, adjusting the required quantity of both syrup and fondant before completing the card payment. The closing date for orders will be Tuesday 2nd July, I shall advise on collection arrangements nearer the time.
Click here to order
Should you have any difficulty in placing your order online, please do contact Tony at tony.capener@gmail.com

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”.