Witney Bees Winter Lecture – Queen Substance

Witney Bees have kindly invited members of OBKA to their next Winter Talk:

The topic is Queen Substance and will be given by an authority on bees – Marin Anastasov NDB.

Queen substance is a pheromone secreted by the mandibular glands of the queens of social insect colonies. The queen substance maintains colony structure as it is given to the worker bees and prevents them from producing/rearing new queens. This talk will cover the importance of this to both individual bees and to the colony as a whole and will look at the different types of pheromone required at different times of the year.

Marin started beekeeping in his teens and developed his initial beekeeping knowledge and skills while studying towards BSc in Animal Science in Bulgaria. Later, he completed an MSc in Organic Farming at Aberdeen University. He is passionate about sustainable food production and his entire working career has been in organic food and farming. Marin is a Master Beekeeper and gained his NDB in 2017. He currently manages 30 colonies in Gloucestershire. Marin is Trustee of Gloucestershire Beekeepers Association and serves on the BBKA Examinations Board. He is an assessor for the Basic, General Husbandry and Advanced Husbandry certificates and has contributed to the development and running of the General Husbandry and Advanced Husbandry training programmes for the BBKA. Marin is co-author and led the implementation of the BBKA Certificate in Honey Bee Breeding, including providing the training and support to both future candidates and assessors.

Cost: £4 on the door (under 14’s free, if accompanied by an adult 😊)

There is lots of free car parking at the rear, in the Waitrose car park.

All those interested in beekeeping are very welcome. Please do all come along, there will be a chance to catch up afterwards!

Please contact Vera vera.jordanat11@gmail.com to let he know if you are coming. If we don’t get sufficient numbers we will have to cancel so please if you can, come along.