Previous Taster Days

Taster Day 2023 – 12th August 2023

For a report on the Annual Taster day on 12th August 2023 please see the blog report we have written.

Taster Day 2022 – Saturday 23rd July 2022

After a break of 3 years it was good to be able to run a Taster day where we could hopefully encourage more people to consider taking up beekeeping.

As always the day was oversubscribed. We have to limit numbers based on the number of demonstrators we have and how many it is sensible to get round a hive so everyone can see and experience what happens as a colony is inspected. With some last minute drop-outs we had 11 at the morning session and 10 at the afternoon session. These number included two children, great to see interest in beekeeping starting at such a young age.

The session started with getting the participants into beesuits (wellington boots, gloves…) and then a short talk, using the demonstration hive, on the parts of a hive.

No, those are not real bees on the frame…..

It was then a short walk to the Training Apiary where we conducted an inspection and had a look at some of the other colonies in the apiary, for example the top bar hive

All photos credit Nicholas Keene

Thanks for the day goes to:
David Lord, Phil Hart and Eric Perkins for all the organisation behind the day.
Gary Thomas and Eric Perkins, the demonstrators on the day (with David Lord having to drop out due to Covid)
Nick Keene, Yvonne Parks and James Grace who were the Apiary Assistants.

Annual taster Day 2019

OBKA Taster Day 2019

The Taster day this year was again heavily oversubscribed – we have to limit the number of people at each session or else there are too many people round each hive that we open and people don’t all get a chance to actually handle the bees.

Thus 24 people, all completely new to beekeeping, joined us on Saturday 17th August split into morning and afternoon groups. The sessions were led by Jonathan Clark and David Lord. The weather was fine and the bees were calm. Jonathan and David demonstrated basic beekeeping techniques to the attendees. Each session was concluded by Q&A, honey tasting (of course!) and tea and biscuits.

Peter Chaunt & Richard Stansfield