Posts by Nick Mawby

Welcome to the October Newsletter. I try to help new beekeepers on their beekeeping journey. I have somewhat ‘adopted’ a couple of first year beekeepers who bought Buckfast nucs this year and then contacted me for help. One had two colonies on commercial frames. Both colonies swarmed in June. The new queens have since mated…

Thanks for signing up to receive reminders on the current season of webinars on the National Bee Improvement Programme. You will also receive updates on BIBBA activities. We will register you as a supporter of NatBIP so that you receive information on progress in the future. Will will undeavour to only send one email to…

BIBBA Monthly – Sept 2021 By Nick Mawby | 26 August 2021 BIBBA Magazines and Newsletters By Nick Mawby | 20 August 2021 Colony Increase – The Roger Patterson Method By Nick Mawby | 4 August 2021 Honeybee improvement in a nutshell By Richard Senior | 29 July 2021 Conserving biodiversity in the dark European…

Book download This month’s download is from 1907 and is called “Facts about bees”, written by E. Root. It’s fascinating to know just how much information was around a hundred years ago despite no internet and email!

Mated and virgin queens through the post Welcome to the September Newsletter. I mentioned last month that I’d been receiving mated and virgin queens through the post as part of the NatBIP piloting process. Each batch survived the postal journey from East Sussex to Cheshire and we picked up useful information about posting queens during…

Cupkit, Fakes and Annoyance “Cupkit” is a name that is used in the U.K. and Ireland for a cell plug queen rearing system that is designed and manufactured by Nicot in France.  Elsewhere in the world it is called “Cupularve”.  As a system I like it, but I think you need to be raising a…

Reserve signage, Oban ferry terminal CONSERVING BLACK BEES (Apis mellifera mellifera) in the Hebrides, Scotland by ANDREW ABRAHAMS, via the American Bee Journal Readers might ask, why on earth spend much of a lifetime con­serving what most beekeepers perceive as an aggressive, unproduc­tive race of honey bee — a race per­haps left behind by history?…

22nd Sept       “The National Bee Improvement Programme – Outline”  Jo Widdicombe 940 5857 4625

29th Sept        “More details of the National Bee Improvement Programme and Participation”     Jo Widdicombe

6thOct            “Global pandemics, bee imports and native bees”    Norman Carreck

13th Oct          “My 50 years experiences of imported bees affecting local stock”        Peter Jenkins

20th Oct          “Resilient Honeybees”    Grace McCormack

27th Oct          “Where we are, how we got here and how we can move on…….”    Roger Patterson

3rd Nov           “Some Fresh Ideas for Teaching and Learning”    Roger Patterson

10th Nov         “Bees and queens for everyone”   Roger Patterson

17th Nov         “Answering Your Questions”        All Speakers

The National Bee Improvement Programme (NatBIP) The National Bee Improvement Programme is intended to provide a platform for the sustainable improvement in the quality of our honey bees. In recent years imports of bees into the UK have continued to increase, mostly of non-native European sub-species. Ireland has also experienced a steady, but more modest,…