On Bank Holiday Monday, the 5th May, Rugby Beekeepers attended the Rugby Spring Fair. This was the first time the event had been held since Covid arrived and it was great to be able to take part again.

During the day there was a constant flow of visitors to the stand


As always the observation hive is a favourite especially with the younger visitors


The queen is definitely in there and the people lucky enough to find her went away with a sticker!

We also had a good selection of our members honey for sale and during the day many jars were sold. A lot of people wanted some as they felt it helped with hayfever. This may be due to our honey not being heavily filtered, so pollen grains from the local flora are in it.

On Sunday the 4th of May we held a training session for our newer members on how to identify a colony that was preparing to swarm and how to implement a swarm control method to stop this happening.

We had 12 people turn up and three committee members carries out routine inspections on the colonies, we then decided on a colony to 'split'.

I have to apologise as my heavily propolised gloves that failed to operate my phone's camera. This resulted in all attempts to take pictures of what we did resulting in naught!

Sadly, we didn't find any of our colonies that had 'charged' queen cells, but we did find one that we decided was very likely to produce them in the next few days. We moved this hive to another position, just over four feet away and placed our prepared nuc in the original hive's position. We then carried out a ‘Pageden’ split on the colony. A demonstration of this can be seen here

On Saturday the 26th of April we held a second session for people who attended our beginners course earlier this year. Although the weather was a bit overcast it was warm and the bees were flying.
Everyone gathered around as a hive was opened and inspected


As frames were removed for inspection an explanation of what was being seen was given

And yes! we found the queen!

One of our swarm collectors reported yesterday that they'd received a call to ask if they could collect a swarm. This is the first one that Rugby Beekeepers has been asked to collect this year. Very early compared with last year when the first swarms weren't appearing until mid-may.

Yesterday we held a session at our training apiary for some of the people that attended our beginners course a few weeks ago. A second session is scheduled for another group in a couple of weeks.

Our apiary manager Kim gave an introductory chat about the apiary and the colonies we were about to inspect.



Martin and Kim gave the first demonstration to the group on how to inspect a hive, explaining how 'Hoopers 5' and the development times of each cast of bee would be used to determine how hive manipulations would be decided upon and what the likely development of each colony would be.





The beginners were shown brood frames the pattern of how the queen laid eggs, the workers stored nectar and pollen and how the brood developed.



Despite the weather forecast suggesting we could have heavy showers, we managed to get through the session with no rain, nice warm sunshine and fairly happy bees.

On Saturday the 29th March we held the second day of our beekeeping for beginners course. In the morning session there were two very interesting presentations given by Steve, one of our most experienced members, that covered swarming, measures to prevent it, methods to mitigate it and how to collect a swarm when it does occur. Steve also covered bee diseases and pests; AFB, EFB, Sac brood, Chalk brood, Nosema, wax moth varroa and the methods and legal requirements regarding their reporting



In the afternoon session there were presentations on extracting honey, labelling rules, mead making, soap, cream and candle making. Regulations covering these activities were covered.



At the end of the day Samantha gave a presentation on siting hives, obtaining bees and the benefits of joining a local beekeeping association (insurance, support, mentoring and on going education). The last session of the day was, as is our tradition, given by a new beekeeper. Steve, who had only started keeping bees last year. His talk was given, warts and all, about how his first year went, amusing, informative and engaging.

We are planning to hold our next beginners course in March 2026 and if you would like to register for it you can use our contact page

We are pleased to note that two of our members, Louisa Richards and Helen Rathbone have both sat the BBKA Module 1 (Honey Bee Management) examination and passed with a distinction and a credit respectively. Well done to the two of you!

This weekend was the first day of our beginners course, where we do our best to teach a group all the basic information they need to start keeping bees.



This year the course was fully booked, with a few people on a waiting list in case someone pulled out at the last minute. On day one we covered a lot of material...

Role of Queens, Workers and Drones in maintaining integrity of the colony. Development times of casts and why they are important in managing bees. Substances collected by bees and their purpose. The Winter Cluster, stores, impact of winter, colony development during spring and into summer. Disease treatment and feeding



On day one we also covered the equipment needed for Beekeeping...
Structure of a removable frame hive, Personal protective equipment, Hives and accessories, Storage space, Hive types, New or second-hand - pros and cons, Cost of equipment, Hygiene



Inspecting colonies was also covered with areas covered such as; Health and well-being of bees, Why we inspect once a week in the Spring, What to look for during an inspection (Hoopers 5), How to hold combs, Disposing of wax, Hygiene between hives/apiaries/tools/clothing, Stings - protection and safety of self and public, Finding and marking queens, keeping records.

At the end of the first day all the attendees seemed to have really enjoyed themselves and are looking forward to the second day.

This month Dave Bonner from the Coventry Beekeepers Association visited us to give a presentation on queen rearing using the Miller method. At the start Dave explained he was going to condense eight weeks of manipulations on two colonies of bees into a 60 minute talk and tha it may be a little pacey!

However, although the who process involves many steps, each one was explained perfectly by Dave and by the end of the talk most people, many taking notes throughout, had a good understanding of what needed ot be done.

Dave gives his talks to raise funds for Bees Abroad, a very worthy charity that trains people in Africa to maintain their own honey bee colonies and in so doing generate a valuable cash crop, honey. This income allows them to provide some of the basic necessities in life.

It was a dreary damp day and the wind was starting to get fairly brisk when we turned up to to carry out our annual apiary cleanup session



This year we had three colonies over wintering, all doing well, but as we have enough hives for eight and the spares were in need of a good scrape and torching we set about the job



A small team of scrapers were employed and as the weather was fairly inclement and the temperature around 7C the wax and propolis were easily removed. It wasn't long before a small pile of scraped boxes, queen excluders, crown boards, etc. were piling up ready to be torched.

One of our volunteers had brought along an industrial sized gas bottle and blow lamp to seriously take on the job of torching the hive parts



Despite the low temperatures, disturbing the colonies upset them a bit and some of our valiant volunteers decides to go into fully suited mode to stop the guard bees doing their job!



Many thanks to all of you who turned up to help, as we had plenty of help we just managed to finish, tidy up and leave as the first drop of rain started to fall.

Same time, same place next year