We still have a few places available on our one-stop safari (a better name really would be 'meet the bee inspectors') to our Nowton Park apiary on Sunday 26th July.

Timings: 10.00a.m. for 10.30a.m., with refreshments upon arrival.

Small groups will look through a selection of hives headed up by David Burns, our own Lewis Gidney and Sarah from the Cambridge area, all seasonal bee inspectors.

Free parking is availablein the walled garden area. Clean beesuits and your usual type of gloves are required and of course no hive tools for hygiene reasons. You will be asked to dip your boots in a diluted bleach solution upon entering the site. Lunch is anticipated at around midday so please bring your own food and drink and chairs or a rug: weather willing we shall be on the green area outside the walled garden.

Please email wsbka@yahoo.co.uk to book your (free) place.

Winter Meeting - Chloe Davis from the Better-B Project

When: Thursday April 16th, 18:45 for 19:00

Where: The Victory Pavilion, Nowton Road, Bury IP33 2BT

Plenty of free parking available.

Chloe is a researcher from Nottingham Trent University on the Better-B project with Professor Martin Bencsik. The European project aims to improve the resilience of beekeeping to abiotic stresses. Her specific task is to try to create varroa-resistant colonies by following a Dutch breeding protocol. This includes the automated monitoring of colonies, using a device to monitor the mass, acoustics and temperature of the colonies.

Honey bee colonies presently face numerous challenges, including pests, diseases, and environmental stresses, which threaten their survival and productivity. Chloe will present ongoing research which explores the use of unsupervised machine learning, specifically principal component analysis (PCA), to analyse hive weight data and detect colonies underperforming. The algorithm has successfully flagged colonies suffering from disorders such as queenlessness, nosema, and varroa mite infestation, corroborated by physical inspections. The project now aims to differentiate surviving varroa-resistant colonies from failing colonies.

Our next monthly winter talk incorporates the Suffolk BKA AGM. Each year, one of the six county BKAs is host and it's our turn this year

When: Saturday, March 21st, 2.00p.m. - 4.00p.m.

Where: Great Barton Village Hall, Elms Close, Bury St Eds, IP31 2NR

Plenty of free parking available. 

We have a guest speaker - Michael Bennett, who will be discussing Nosema. This could be very beneficial to many of us, especially after our very long cold & wet winter where many colonies may have encountered issues relating to Nosema. 

There will be copious refreshments available as we hope very much that there will be members from all over Suffolk who, weather willing, may have spent an enjoyable morning admiring Bury and its surroundings. 

Let us know if you’ll be coming along for some tea and cake and an afternoon discussing all things bees!!