East of Scotland
Beekeepers' Association

3 May 2008 New Downie Bee Demonstration and Picnic

   The weather was sunny and we managed with spare suits brought to get all the dozen beginners dressed up.  June and her helpers started to brew tea and set tables into a nearby barn and off we went. 
   Henry split us up into two groups absolute beginners with Iain as teacher and beekeepers with Henry to look for unmarked queens in two of his boxes.

   The beginner group looked firstly at the two beehives in the foreground of the above picture.  Iain showing use of wedges and care not crushing the bees.  He went through the hives explaining and showing the eggs, larva, sealed brood and drone brood. 
   Afterwards he moved on to 2 empty hives some distance away with empty frames with carboard to pretend a live colony and showed how we split a hive when we see queen cells, called an artifical swarm.

Iain also explained the various colours of pollen and honey; where they came from, trees or flowers.  Best of all he said was the heather honey and the pollen is grey. 
   We finished in the barn with tea and cake.  Henry had prepared a table with tools and the unmade frames we buy and gave a demonstration of putting them together.  Our beginners will benefit from the teaching accomplished today to give confidence that the association will provide teaching and help when they start to keep bees themselves.

DEMONSTRATION AT GLAMIS ON 14^TH JUNE 2008.

Our demonstration in June was given by Ally Whitelaw, one of our most experienced beekeepers.  There was a good turnout of members and when we arrived Ally had already erected his curtain sided gazebo complete with chairs for the ladies not going to the bees.  There were some heavy showers around but luckily they all missed us.  The apiary Ally chose for his demonstration was in a small orchard surrounded by a high hedge.  During the demonstration Ally was assisted by Henry Simpson so that we were able to form two groups.  We saw colonies on double brood chambers split into two and nucleus hives being made up.  Several new queens were marked with red paint, from Swienty and available from John Taylor of Beeware at Inver by Dunkeld.  The queens were clipped using very neat scissors operated like tweezers.   They are used by seamstresses and also available from John.  Ally uses plastic foundation and we were able to see how well the bees had drawn comb from this.  John showed us how we can mark our queens by attaching numbered coloured discs to their thorax.  During the demonstration both Ally and Henry expertly answered the questions put to them.  Afterwards we all enjoyed an excellent picnic with tea and home baking kindly provided by the ladies.