This year has certainly developed into a more successful and eventful one compared to last year, and we couldn’t bee happier! With many of our ‘in-person’ events back on it’s been great to spend time with people face to face and enjoy the many benefits these interactions bring.
We have re-established our education workshops and practical exams, and so far this year have hosted workshops on beeswax and how to create many products from beeswax, like candles, moulded candles, beeswax wraps for food, and starter wax for frames that go into bee hives.
One of our charitable aims is to keep the beekeeping heritage alive and our skep workshop this year saw several beekeepers learn how to make the tradition skeps used for centuries by beekeepers and a handy tool for catching summer swarms!
To ensure hobby beekeepers across Scotland can learn all about beekeeping and their honey bees, we run an education program where new and experienced beekeepers can learn. Whether that’s the practical skills needed to work with bees in hives, to detailed microscopy analysing not only the bee’s biological makeup, but also putting honey and pollen under the microscope to see where the bees have been foraging. We also run a series of theoretical exams which can be sat in person or online and cover a wide range of topics including honey bee management, honey bee pests, and diseases, bee breeding, bee biology, and behavior to foraging.
We continue to develop our focus on Young Beekeepers, and were delighted to see so many engage with and be published in our monthly member’s magazine, as well as having several schools and young beekeepers volunteer as guides and stewards in the Honey Tent at the Royal Highland Show, where they chatted to many of the 33,000 visitors across the 4 days!
A HUGE thank you to everyone at Vegware for your monthly donation, with public events just beginning again, we are delighted so far this year to have given away 3,761 ‘Bee Happy and What to Grow’ leaflets, 1,988 bee friendship bracelets, and 1,282 pollinator-friendly seed packs to local beekeeping groups, the Beavers, Royal Highland Show Honey Tent visitors, and other groups from all across Scotland, including Aberfeldy, Cambuslang, Kemnay, Kilbarchan, Morningside, and Speyside.
