What's On!

Saturday, 20th April 2024

2.30pm

March 2024

Final week of our Beginners' Beekeeping Course, well done to all!

Also, the first of the Dave Atherton Bursery awarded to one lucky participant.

Wednesday 28th February 2024

The first DDBKA talk of 2024 will be at 7.30pm on the 28th Feb 2024 in An Cultúrlann, Great James Street, Derry. The talk will be about 'Preparations for the new beekeeping season'.

The talk will be delivered by Mark Wallace, Three Rivers Beekeepers Association. Mark is an experienced beekeeper and honey producer and regularly gives talks on bee keeping. This promises to be a very informative evening and will provide opportunities for Questions and Answers after the talk.

Photos from the night can be viewed on our Gallery page.

Starting Tuesday 13th February 2024

To register your interest for the course please contact : info@derryanddistrictbeekeepers.com, or go to our application form and follow the instructions of how to register/pay

2024 New Introduction Course to Beekeeping

The course is for anyone thinking about taking

 up this fascinating hobby

 Delivered by Derry and District Beekeepers Association , the course is certified by the Federation of Irish Beekeepers Association and is deemed essential knowledge from which to launch your new hobby.

Overview : This is an informative course providing the knowledge of how to get involved in beekeeping.

Content

• Introduction to the year of a beekeeper
• Workings of a bee colony
• Pollen and nectar sources
• Beekeeping equipment
• Controlling bees and working for honey
• Harvesting the honey
• Bee diseases and solving problems
• Varroa treatments and further education
• Beekeepers code of conduct

This course will be run by experienced beekeepers. The course fee is £40 and is classroom based .

Our Association and FIBKA membership fee which provides public liability insurance is not included in this fee. DDBKA & FIBKA membership and insurance are mandatory if you wish to proceed to the practical stages of working with bees in our apiary.

 

Wednesday 31st May 2023, 7.30pm

Event: Monthly meeting

Time : 7.30pm

Venue : Culturlann, Great James Street, Derry 

Please click here to go to Application Form

Please note: We are really looking forward to commencing our course on the 20^th March. For those who have already confirmed and paid online your place has been secured, anyone who wishes to pay on the night please confirm by email that you will be attending and commit to paying in person on the 20th. We look forward to meeting you all in person on the first night.

info@derryanddistrictbeekeepers.com

Saturday 31st December 2022, 11am

We will be doing a demonstration on "Oxalic Acid" varroa treatment from 11am Sat 31st Dec at the Apiary in Brooke Park.

All welcome!

We will also be collecting membership registrations if it suits people better.

Wednesday 16th November 2022

Event: AGM

Time: 7-9.30pm

Venue: An Culturlann, Great James Street



     1.    Welcome from the Chairman

     2.    Reports from: Chairman

             Vice Chairman

             Secretary

             Treasurer

     3.    For the purpose of delivering a FIBKA accredited education programme Derry and District Beekeepers Association

             committee will put forward a recommendation to affiliate to The Federation of Irish Beekeepers Associations as from

             1^st January 2023   

     4.    Election of officers for 2023

Wednesday 12 October 2022

Event: Monthly meeting

Time : 7pm - 9pm

Venue : An Culturlann Great James Street 

 The past number of years have been difficult to safely bring our members together. This in itself has limited our ability to offer options around apiary access and education. Our hope is that we can now get back on track, and begin by welcoming existing and new members to an evening during which we can explore the education systems available to us, and the proposed 2^nd association apiary within the new Acorn Farm at St Columbs Park. We can also restart the popular question and answer sessions which take place either formally or informally over a cup of tea or coffee. It's a great way to reconnect with other beekeepers, share information, resources or ideas .

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Ever wondered what the inside of a bee hive looks like? or have you ever fancied getting up close and personal with our native Irish black honey bees, well now's your chance. Our Connect 2021 project which has been funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and made possible thanks to National Lottery players, have awarded us a grant to allow you to do all of that!

We are holding a series of open apiary sessions over the coming months at our Brooke Park apiary (across from the bottom gate lodge), the first of which took place on Saturday the 14th of August from 11am to 1pm. See dates for 2022 below.

We had honey tasting, an observation hive, and beesuits for those who want to get hands on;  and after all the excitement we wound down with a tea or coffee and a chat about bees.

(All of which will be subject to the prevailing covid advice and restrictions at the time) .

Saturday, 14th May 2022, 11am

Apiary Open Day 

Come along and join us again this year for another open day.

We're open from 11am, first turning on the right from lower entrance to Brooke Park on Infirmary Road. Tea, coffee, cakes and a chat, and see the bees up close in our observation hive. For those interested we will have bee suits available for hands on experience.

20th May 2021

May's monthly meeting will be on Thursday 20th May on Zoom.

We welcome back Brian Dane who will tell us all about drones.

Drones will be in our colonies now. They are important but often overlooked by beekeepers. This talk will outline why they are special, how they do their job, how they contribute to the health of the hive and why we shouldn’t discard them.

It’s an interesting and unusual topic and the talk will last about 40 minutes.



Join on Thursday 20th at 7.30pm. See you then.

22nd April 2021

April's monthly meeting is on Thursday at 7.30pm on Zoom.



On the cusp of the swarming season, no better time to brush up on swarm management!
This month we are delighted to welcome Wally Shaw as our guest speaker. His talk will be divided in two parts - pre-emptive swarm control and re-active swarm control and he will take questions between the two parts.
 
Wally Shaw is a leading authority on swarming in honeybee colonies.
He has written two booklets on the subject - ‘There are queen cells in my hive what should I do?' and 'An Apiary Guide to Swarm Control, and has a book due to be published shortly, by Beecraft - Swarming Biology and Control.
 
Based in Angelsea in North Wales, he and his wife have been keeping bees for 34 years and currently run about 30 colonies. They work with locally adapted, near native black bees.
 
The driving force behind Wallys beekeeping is twofold: firstly, an absolute fascination with bees and trying to understand the workings of the colony, and secondly, applying to beekeeping what is known scientifically about bees.
 
Early in his beekeeping career he noted that swarm management was the most difficult part of beekeeping, and developed methods for the beekeeper to interact with the colony to control swarming and get a good result for the beekeeper and a good result for the colony.
 
In the mid-90’s he was nominated to represent Wales on the Bee Health Advisory Panel – an important link between Associations and the National Bee Unit. He remained in this role throughout the Healthy Bee Plan where he also served as a member of the Science and Evidence Advisory Group.

He was awarded an OBE in 2014 for his services to the National Bee Unit and to Beekeeping.
Both Wally and his wife Jenny are retired research ecologists.

A definite date .........

18th March 2021

March's monthly meeting is on Thursday 18th March at 7.30pm, on Zoom.
 
We’re moving closer to the active beekeeping season, and those exciting manipulations involving the queen.
 
The speaker this month is Jonathan Getty. His presentation will include:

• How to determine if a colony is queenright.
• Setting up a colony to receive a new queen.
• How to handle and cage queens, including marking and clipping.
• How to use apideas to get queens mated and how to introduce a queen.

About Jonathan Getty -

Jonathan is currently the chair of the Belfast & District branch of the Ulster Beekeepers Association which has over 250 members. He is at least a fourth generation beekeeper in the Getty family. His main beekeeping interest is queen rearing based on our native bee Apis Mellifera Mellifera.

He started up the Belfast Minnowburn queenrearing group in 2012 and is currently involved with a new queenrearing group in Co. Tyrone which started up in 2020. He manages over 100 colonies of his own spread over about a dozen apiary sites in NI. He also rears between 400-500 queens per season using 200 Apideas.
 
DON’T MISS THIS ONE

18th February 2021

February's monthly meeting is on Thursday 18th February at 7.30pm on Zoom. Invites will be sent out to all members the day before.

The speaker is Richard Wray. Richard will give a talk on "Medical risks and benefits of bees and their products". An interesting topic and not one that has been heard often, if ever.

Richard has been beekeeping for 10 years. He describes himself as very much a hobbyist beekeeper and prefers to keep his apiary between 2 and 5 hives. He is interested in beekeeping for the bees, not to maximise the honey that they produce.

Richard completed the preliminary beekeeping course with Dave Atherton in 2011 and the Intermediate Certificate with the late Rev Sam Miller in 2015. He is a retired medical surgeon.

3 December 2020

Our AGM is at 7.30 on Thursday 3rd December 2020. Due to COVID-19 restrictions it will be held online via Zoom. An invitation link will be sent to members later by email.
 
After the AGM business there will be a Power Point presentation by John Hill, about UBKA, our parent organisation.

Following John Hill, there will be  a presentation by Brian Dane on Making Nucs.

Lots of good stuff! Again, don't worry if you are late for the 7.30pm start, you will still be able to join the meeting from the link in your email.

29 October 2020

Meetings are starting up again, on-line! See you all on Thursday 29th October 2020 on Zoom. The link has been sent to all members, please get in touch if you did not get one.

Don't worry if you are late for the 7.30pm start, you will still be able to join the meeting from the link in your email.

Dearcán Media, based in the Cultúrlann, is making a 50 minute documentary for TG4 on the often underappreciated importance of pollinators to the Irish environment. 

The all-Ireland pollinator plan, now in its 5th year, is framing the documentary, which looks at a year in the life of pollinators across a variety of habitats and settings. As well as some material in the Brooke Park apiary, they have been filming bees and other pollinators from April to October on council owned land in Derry and Buncrana, in private gardens, commercial polytunnels, school grounds, allotments, managed hedgerows, nature reserves as well as waste ground and roadside verges. The documentary won't be ready until January 2021, but we'll be able to view some of the material at this meeting.
 
It will be really interesting especially from a local perspective.