Cheviot Breeding Group’s queen-rearing day with Kate Atchley

Published on by

Cheviot Breeding members, joined by East Lothian, Edinburgh & Peebles beekeepers, met to learn more about the raising of queens, led by Kate Atchley.

A lovely sunny day greeted the eight participants of the Queen rearing course on the 7th June at Roxburgh in the Scottish Borders. After the initial meeting and greeting it was down to work. A quantity of young worker bees were required to make up mating nucs. Kate has a nifty way to get them off the super frames and into a bucket without too many escaping!  [See header photo] Continue reading “Cheviot Breeding Group’s queen-rearing day with Kate Atchley” →

North East Bee Breeding Group’s First Meeting 2019

Published on by

The North East of Scotland has a long history of beekeeping and a large number of active beekeepers organised into associations at local and regional level.  In the 70s and into the 80s the so-called Aberdeenshire “Maud” strain of bee was discovered as having native bee characteristics and traits, and lineages from this strain were spread far and wide around Scotland. It seems appropriate therefore that the North East now has a group interested in the conservation and breeding of Apis mellifera mellifera.

Continue reading “North East Bee Breeding Group’s First Meeting 2019” →

Identify Those Native Honey Bees – Winter workshop 2018

Published on by Gavin Ramsay

Newbattle Bee Academy – 17 Nov 2018

First of all, a note about the Bee Academy at Newbattle Acdemy: what a wonderful place for a workshop.  For those of you who haven’t visited, it’s a beautifully restored wooden hut, adjacent to the main college building, built for military purposes in the run up to WWII.  It’s now a cosy space – helped by the huge, well stacked wood burner! – well equipped for events such as this and home to an impressive library of bee-related materials.

Continue reading “Identify Those Native Honey Bees – Winter workshop 2018” →

Scottish Native Honey Bee Conservation Project

Published on by

Do you have dark native honey bees?

Do you think that you may have Scottish native honey bees?  Are you interested in helping their recovery in Scotland?  Would you like a chance to have them DNA tested?

We are seeking input from all beekeepers in Scotland to help find – and ultimately propagate – examples of the native honey bee.  If your bees, or the bees of other local beekeepers you collaborate with, are dark brown without significant banding, then please consider submitting photos for our crack team of assessors to investigate.  Scotland is divided into six regions with a local contact point (or Local Curator) who will guide you through the process.  Click here for instructions on how to participate in the SNHBS Conservation Project.

Continue reading “Scottish Native Honey Bee Conservation Project” →

SNHBS Annual Meeting

Published on by

Our annual meeting this year, held on the 17th March, saw 61 of our 181 strong membership join us at Kinross Community Campus to listen to speakers Per Kryger, Jon Getty and Ian Lennox and to participate in the afternoon’s business meeting of the Society. Thank you to all of you who managed to attend despite the dire weather forecast, and also to those of you who got in touch with well wishes for the day.

Continue reading “SNHBS Annual Meeting” →

Identify those native bees – Winter workshop, 18 November 2017

Published on by

How do we identify native honey bees? This question is fundamental to everything we aim to do at SNHBS and members were invited along to the University of Aberdeen in November to get a handle on just this question.  Forty-five attendees had a full day hands-on introduction to the basic features and traits of Apis mellifera mellifera and got to hear about really exciting new developments in DNA analysis that might be available to hobby beekeepers soon.

Continue reading “Identify those native bees – Winter workshop, 18 November 2017” →

Summer 2017 Queen Rearing Workshop in Perth

Published on by

by Gavin Ramsay

Forty-six beekeepers, mostly SNHBS members, came to Perth for the queen-rearing workshop organised by the Ochils Breeding Group over two days in August. After a classroom session going through the principles of selection, queen rearing, queen mating and subsequent management, the attendees divided into three groups for the three practical sessions occupying much of the day. Jeff took them through the grafting session, showing the right stage of larva to use and the methods employed to move the larvae into cups for cell raising. Participants worked in pairs to ensure that everyone had a chance to try grafting for themselves, many using magnifying headbands to help the careful handling of larvae of the right stage. John took his groups through everything to do with mating nuclei, the types available with their good and less good points, making them up with young bees and their management. I showed finding and handling queens and demonstrated harvesting queens from mating nuclei after the new queens were established. Everyone was encouraged to try their hand at lifting young workers and handling them as if they were queens. The yellow-spotted workers can still be seen in the MiniPluses now! Continue reading “Summer 2017 Queen Rearing Workshop in Perth” →

SNHBS – News from launch event

Published on by

Compiled by Kate Atchley from texts by Ewan Campbell, Em Mackie and Gavin Ramsay.  (Article first published in The Scottish Beekeeper, July 2017)

On 1 April at the Lovat Hotel in Perth, almost 80 members of the newly-formed Scottish Native Honey Bee Society (SNHBS) met to launch and help to establish priorities for the society.  In this article we offer news of the launch event as well as confirmation of the society’s aims and initial activities. Continue reading “SNHBS – News from launch event” →