Hopefully you have read the blogs about the summer BBQ (03 August) and the Shipston stand at the Brailes Village Show (10th August).

August is a very busy month for us and straight after the Brailes show we had our 2nd Monday meeting on 12th August.

August’s 2nd Monday meeting

The theme of August’s monthly meeting was ‘Preparing for Winter’.

We tried a different approach to the meeting this time where we had 3 ‘tables’ each with an expert host and covering: Varroa treatments, Feeding for Winter, and Preparing your colonies and hives for winter’. Attendees were split into 3 groups that rotated round the tables.

This worked really well, members had plenty of time to ask questions but there was also lots of discussion – after all, ask 5 beekeepers……. We thank Graham Franklin for suggesting the format and running this part of the meeting.

Beginners Wednesday session – 14th August

With the evenings starting to draw in, supers mostly removed and extracted (and the honey winning prizes), we’re ready to start varroa treatments and prepare the colonies for winter. Thus this session was the penultimate session of the Beginners Group 2024.

As always there was highs and lows. The colony recovered from a barn conversion-to-be now has a queen so the nuc was given a frame of BIAS from another colony to help it build up.

Meanwhile the colony where we found a dead queen on the OMF last week, and opened and empty queen cells, doesn’t appear to have a queen – so they got a test frame. There are still a few supers to remove and the colony in the commercial hive is just not quite right. Hive 4 has either a drone-laying queen or laying workers; we hope to clarify what’s going on there next week.

Then just 3 days later it was the

Tysoe Flower and Vegetable Show – Saturday 17th August

The Shipston stand at this show was led by Douglas Nethercleft. They also have a honey show and of course there was lots of Shipston members entering – and winning 🙂

There were lots of visitors to the stand and as always the observation hive was a great draw.

The Stand Team – Irene, Paul, Douglas and Julia….

The honey show saw a major upset. Ray, whose mead triumphed at the mead tasting we had at a Shipston 2nd Monday some time ago came 2nd to Julia Neal with Douglas’ mead 3rd. The variations in colour of honey was amazing. Irene’s was very dark from chestnut, and then one was very light and delicate, almost like white wine in colour from borage. Lucy had the honour of being the judge’s steward, who was Ian from Brize Norton. She said she found it really interesting.