Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[biobee]

Our January meeting will be on the 8th, not the 1st, for obvious reasons.

Kingsbridge Inn, Totnes, 7.30pm as usual. All welcome.

[PlantLady]

Thank you - I'll put it in my diary.... didn't make the last one on account of my Mum ending up in hospital after a fall.....

[biobee]

First meeting of 2014 is tonight at 7.30 in the Kingsbridge Arms, then every month on the first Tuesday UFN.

All welcome.

[Bek]

Hello! We are Bek and Jamie. We live in Exeter and would like to begin beekeeping. We have a two acre field not too far from where we are currently renting that we are hoping to keep the bees on. We have spent the winter building a top bar hive and reading and re-reading The Barefoot Beekeeper as a starting point. We would now like to buddy up with natural beekeepers - and this is the most local, top-bar-hive-using group we have come across. We wondered if the group is still active and meeting, and open to new members?

We are also thinking about trying to get some practical, hands on experience before we try anything for ourselves. We thought about doing a course, but many of them seem to cover things we have already read a lot about; as well as building your hive - which we have also already done.

In the next few weeks we need to think about how we will obtain the actual bees (we don't feel confident about trying to catch a swarm, especially without having had any hands on experience with bees) and then transitioning them successfully to our hive, including supporting them for the first few months, while they are (hopefully!) establishing themselves. We are thinking that regular meetings with a local group might be the best way to learn about these next steps?

Any advice would be very much appreciated - thanks

[biobee]

Our next meeting is on Tuesday March 3, 7:30pm at The Kingsbridge Inn, 9 Leechwell St, Totnes, Devon TQ9 5SY

You are very welcome to join us.

[Bek]

That was good timing! We'll hopefully see you tomorrow evening.