Nick Bentham-Green “Bee Improvement in Cornwall, Achievements and Aspirations”
Nick was in a ‘former life’ a Royal Marines Officer for 32 years. Nick first started keeping bees in the early 90’s having between 2 and 5 colonies for many years. For most of that time he bred his own queens, quickly realising that there had to be a better way rather than importing queens.…
Read MoreWednesday Dinner Menu
Please check that you are happy with the menu before booking for the conference dinner. We will contact you in advance to ascertain your choices.
Read MoreClive de Bruyn “BIBBA in the Isle of Man 40+ years ago”
Clive started beekeeping in the 1960s, and has managed colonies in 11 counties. He was employed at the National Beekeeping Unit in the 1980s, supervising disease inspection officers. He has worked in a UK beefarming enterprise (2000+ colonies), raising 1000 queens annually. Clive’s first beekeeping exam was in 1970, whilst a committee member of the…
Read MoreDorian Pritchard “Selective breeding without inbreeding; where’s the happy medium?”
Dorian Pritchard is a retired university lecturer in medical genetics. He has a PhD in genetics, is author of “Foundations of Developmental Genetics” and first author of “Medical Genetics At A Glance”. He has run 4 – 20 national hives in Northumberland since 1979 and was inspired to concentrate on the native Dark Bee, A.…
Read MoreTrisha Marlow “(The) Status Quo: Rocking all over the Hive “
Trisha keeps around 40 colonies of locally-adapted bees on six apiaries in the Welsh Marches, breeding her own queens selectively. Some apiaries are close to ling heather, others to OSR, thus minimising the stress to man and bees of moving hives while giving a selection of honeys. With her partner Paul, Camlad Apiaries is run as…
Read MoreKeith Pierce “Apideas: Their operation and maintenance”
I have been beekeeping now for over 25 years, selectively rearing queens of our Dark Native Irish Bee, Apis mellifera mellifera. My selection program is based on the ability of my bees to over-winter strongly, together with disease resistance, docility, productivity, colour and more. My home and main mating apiary is just on the outskirts…
Read MorePhil Chandler “Balanced Beekeeping: Top Bars, Eco Floors and Black Bees”
I took up beekeeping in 2000 after becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of modern agriculture on wild populations of pollinators. I started with WBC hives, but quickly became interested in more natural beekeeping systems, designing and building a number of variations of the top bar hive and experimenting with low-interference protocols. I worked at…
Read MoreEoghan Mac Giolla Coda “Producing Honey Under Difficult Conditions”
Eoghan Mac Giolla Coda is a commercial beekeeper based on Ireland’s east coast. As a fourth-generation beekeeper, he learned his craft through helping his father with the famous Galtee black bees of Co. Tipperary. After settling in Co. Louth, he embarked on his own beekeeping enterprise using local strains of native Irish honey bee. He…
Read MoreJim Ryan “Beekeeping – If the bees wrote the book”
As a child I used to help my grandfather making up section crates and wiring and waxing frames. I started my real career as a beekeeper in 1983 and since then I qualified as a lecturer in 1989. I edited An Beachaire the Irish Beekeeper for 14 years retiring in 2012. I lecture at Gormanston…
Read MorePaul Cross “Development of a miniature vibration energy harvester for battery-less tracking of honey bees”
Paul keeps 15 colonies on Anglesey and runs the Bangor University apiary which is used for teaching and research purposes. He is involved in supervising a diverse range of bee-related research projects, including the evaluation of bee-keeping as a poverty alleviating tool in Uganda and Tanzania, discrimination of honey bee races in North Wales (in…
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