Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells Branch

If you need advice or help with a newly arrived swarm simply click on the link below.

Link to Swarms page.

May has been an unusually quiet month for swarms but this long very cold start may mean the swarming season will start in earnest in June. Hopefully we will get some blue sky days for the flying bees to go foraging, which will make inspections easier, so here is a bullet list of things to do this month:

• Continue with weekly inspections.
• Practice marking (and clipping) drones.
• Ensure sufficient supers for main honey flow.
• Extract full supers.
• Continue with prefered method of swarm control.
• Check new queens have mated by looking for eggs.
• Collect swarms (if you know how to) See Article under ‘Swarms’.
• Monitor mite drop <10 day OK (~400)
• In emergency dust with icing sugar or 1 tray of Apiguard for 2 weeks!

Click on: 'This Month's Newsletter'

Kent Science Resource Laboratory, Sittingbourne

Planned Courses for 2013: 

Our aim  this year will be to provide 2nd level and more advanced courses for beekeepers who have had bees for a few years. The programme includes courses aimed at supporting those putting themselves up for the important BBKA Basic Assessment and BBKA General Husbandry practicals.  Additionally, rather than the rather random collection of courses on aspects of microscopy in beekeeping this year, in 2013 the plan is to offer a staged series of possibly 5 different courses from an introduction through to anatomy and dissection and pollen analysis.Some of the popular courses are to be repeated and some frequently requested courses are to be added in 2013.

Daniel Marsh has been keeping bees since 2009 and started a Beekeeping Blog in June 2010. Download his 'Tales from the Beehive'  to see how his beekeeping has progressed over the last 3 years,  by clicking on: 'Daniel'

See Meetings and Events for all our Apiary meetings detailed in the 2013 programme.

Weald Memorial Hall

The 2013 indoor meetings start again in the Autumn on Tuesday 17th September 2013 at Weald Memorial Hall TN14 6PS. Use Google maps for directions and for their web page click on: 'Weald Hall'.