News Updates

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.

Gloucestershire BKA Spring Show

Honey Show, Lectures, and AGM
Saturday 18th February from 10am to 4pm
Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester GL7 6JS


Entry Form for Honey Show is here: Entry Form
Agenda for AGM is here: Agenda

The programme for the Day is:
10.00 – 10.45 Arrival, Honey Show registrations and refreshments
10.45 – 11.00 Welcome by Cirencester and District and introduction to speaker:
11:00 – 12:00 Recent research in honeybees – speaker Norman Carreck
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch break – lunch will be provided
13:00 – 13:30 GBKA Annual General Meeting and Honey Show awards
13:30 – 14:30 The Asian Hornet threat – speaker Andrew Durham
14:30 – 15:00 Tea and coffee
15:00 – 16:00 The Mind of a Bee – speaker Lars Chittka
16:00 Event close

NBKA Previous Winter Talks

Topics and Dates were as below:

Location: The usual venue is Newent Community School,
in the 6th Form Conference Room.

If you have ideas for further talks please contact Bob or Marcus
at newentbees@googlemail.com

Thursday 23rd February 2023 at 7:30pm
Derek Mitchell will talk on “The Invisible Dams of Bees”
Thursday 30th March 2023 at 7:30pm
Roger Paterson will talk on “Bee Improvement is Easy”