Canalside Community Bees AGM

We will hold our AGM on Thursday 17th October, at 7.30pm, upstairs at the Fox and Vivian pub at 32 Clarendon Avenue. This will be an opportunity for you to hear about the past year in beekeeping. We will discuss some ideas about how to improve the bee club in the coming year, and also have a talk about sustainable beekeeping using "Warre" hives - a smaller style of fixed top bar hive.
Members of CCB will be able to pick up their share of the honey harvest. If you cant come to the AGM, you can pick up your honey at a future bee club meeting.
If you did not join the bee club this year, you are very welcome to come along to the AGM to learn more about what we have been up to. We will be offering people the chance to join early for next year. You will only be able to purchase honey if there is still some remaining after all current members have purchased.
Hope you can come!

Date of Talk Changed! - Now 25th April

We have changed the date of the talk by Chris Parks. It will now take place on Thursday 25th April at Oddfellows Hall, 6 Clarence Terrace, Warwick Street, Leamington Spa, CV32 5DL. The talk will start at 7.30pm and tea and coffee will be served after the talk and before the discussion time. All are welcome. £2 entry. Free for members of Canalside Community Bees.

Upcoming Talk - 18th April

We have booked a really interesting speaker to give an evening talk on Thursday 18th April. Chris Parks keeps bees in straw skeps and top bar hives both of which could be considered more 'natural' ways of beekeeping. He will talk about his experiences. He will also share his interest in the heritage of honey. All in all it should be a facinating evening. More details will be posted up once we have booked the venue.

April 6th Apiary Meeting - Planting the Nectar Garden

The next apiary meeting will be on April 6 when we will be planting our nectar garden (as long as this cold weather has ended by then!). We have bought a large selection of organic nectar and pollen producing plants which will help the bees to have food throughout the summer. We will be planting these amongst the fruit trees near to the apiary at Canalside Community Food (CCF), Southam Road, Radford Semele. We will meet at 2pm at the CCF Barn. There will be a social event at CCF that day so there will be a lot of people around. If you are not a member of CCF then please make yourself known / ask for a bee club member! Any questions, email us at canalsidecommunitybee@yahoo.co.uk.

Workshop on making balms and creams from honey and wax

Dinah and Helen went on an excellent course where they learned to make body butter and lip balm using honey and wax (amongst other things). They will be sharing their skills in a workshop for bee club members on 7th Feb in Cubbington. If you are interested then please email canalsidecommunitybees@yahoo.co.uk for more information. Numbers will be limited  so hurry and book your place.

French Bees Create Blue Honey

Check out this great story
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120009-French-Bees-Create-Blue-Honey-After-Raiding-M-Ms-Factory

Honey extraction and sticky fingers!

We borrowed the mobile extractor from the Warwick and Leamington beekeepers Assoc and had a fun morning uncapping and spinning frames then jarring up the honey.  Just enough for 2 jars each for honey share members and none for sale to others. At least we got some honey which is more than a lot of local beekeepers. Here are some photos...

Taking the honey supers off

A group of us made the most of Saturdays sunshine to take the supers of honey off the hives. We also checked 3 of the hives which are looking fine.

Who killed the honey bee

You might be interested in this BBC documentary. Only 6 days left to watch it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jzjys

Another swarm!!

Dinah and I collected another swarm yesterday. Its a big one and we put it in the top bar hive. Again? you might be thinking? Well the first one we put in the top bar hive flew off the next day. The second swarm we put in the top bar hive didnt seem to have a queen so we had to transfer to a national hive and gave a frame of eggs and they are happy there now with a new queen. So this is the third swarm to be installed. Hopefully third time lucky!

Report on R4 World at One

I heard an interesting short report on bees on the World at One today. All beekeepers are struggling with the poor weather we have had so far this year. It might make you more sympathetic to the fact that we might not have much honey to harvest this year unless the weather improves!! 

The link is here - and the report was at around minute 21:20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01jrlf5

We have a swarm!

Dinah got a call about a swarm this evening. It was in a local beekeepers garden so he had caught it and put it in a box already. We took it up to the apiary and put it in the top bar hive. It was a big swarm which its good news. Lets  hope the bees like their new home.

I really enjoyed the AGM on Wednesday and what an ace film (The Vanishing Of The Bees), I recommend it to those who weren't able to make it...it's eye opening. We mentioned how bees are starting to swarm now (during breaks in the rain) so I thought I would share a picture of me and my friend on our way to catch one...

Here is a lovely poem by Carol Ann Duffy too....

The Hive

All day we leave and arrive at the hive,
concelebrants.The hive is love,
what we serve, preserve, avowed in Latin murmurs
as we come and go, skydive, freighted
with light, to where we thrive, us, in time's hum,
on history's breath,
                      industrious, identical...

there suck we,
alchemical, nectar-slurred, pollen-furred,
the world's mantra us, our blurry sound
along the thousand scented miles to the hive,
haven, where we unpack our foragers;
or heaven stare, drone eyed, for a queen's start;
or nurse or build in milky, waxy caves,
the hive, alive, us - how we behave.

Canalside Community Bees AGM

CCB will hold a launch AGM on Wednesday 19th May at Bath Place from 7.30 (please try to be punctual). We will start with a meeting to introduce the project and the steering group, and to hear your ideas about how the Bee club can develop. This will be followed by teas / coffees and then a screening of the documentary film "The Vanishing of the Bees" which looks at Colony Collapse Disorder and other problems facing bees worldwide, and the links to pesticide use. Hope to see you there!

Fun at the hives - 5th May

Hopefully not everyone is away for the Bank Holiday! Come along and join in with some activities at the apiary. We may be able to look at the bees, but there are other jobs to do like planting some bee friendly flower seeds (we can do this in the poly tunnels if its raining), and sorting out the bee shed (where we keep all the equipment). We will meet at the geodome at 1.30 or if you arrive later find us at the apiary or in the polytunnel.

Learning opportunities

Here are details of a couple of courses that have come to my attention:

1. Beekeeping Appreciation Day. Saturday 19 May 2012
A one day course run at Marton Village Hall near Rugby by our local beekeepers association. Book at http://www.warleambees.com/trainapp.html
 

2. The Honey Bee - A Being of Warmth, Friday 15th June to Sunday 17th June

A weekend course at Hawkwood College near Stroud looking at Biodynamic Beekeeping. http://www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/courses/The_Honey_Bee_-_A_Being_of_Warmth_June

What a tidy apiary!

A group of us spent the morning tidying the apiary ready for new hives and more bees. The willow fence is starting to grow and the Blackthorn is in blossom. Lovely!

Bees and flowers

"For to the bee the flower is a fountain of life, and to the flower the bee is a messenger of love, and to both, bee and flower, the giving and receiving is a need and an ecstacy". From Kahlil Gibran The Prophet

We had a buzzing first steering group meeting last night getting busy making arrangements for the Honey CSA. Looking forward to getting some of the Bee Club jobs done on saturday so hope all you enthusiasts out there will be flying by...We are hoping to arrange some more bee related events in the coming months such as film nights and talks so look out for that. The first film will most likely be the Vanishing of the Bees, a documentary exploring the decline of honeybees and the ecological, political and economic implications of that. It offers advice as to what we can do to help the situation...such as joining your local Bee Club! x

Cheeky bumble bee

I have a skep of bees in my garden and yesterday I saw a cheeky bumble bee trying to get in the hive. But there were so many honey bees going in and out it couldn't get close enough. I wonder if it could smell honey or just had an identity crisis!