Out and About 2018

OBKA Garden Tidy-up

 

The OBKA Apiary is located in, and with thanks to, the Marlborough School in Woodstock.

 

As part of the quid-pro-quo for having the Apiary we have regular sessions where OBKA members tidy up some of the gardens within the grounds of the school - and of course also do a bit of tidying of the Apiary site as well.

 

The last such session was on Sunday 30th September 2018 when some 10 Members spent the morning digging, cutting and pruning. The ground around the hives in the Apiary was also tidied up and is now looking quite neat! Their reward was some tea, biscuits and soup. A good days work and thanks from the Committee to all who came along.

Blenheim Flower Show 21 - 23 June 2019

The show seems be getting bigger and better each year with a steady flow of honey sales, enquiries about beekeeping, the beginner’s course, bumble bee nests and spotting the queen in the observation hive.

 

Eric Perkins managed to do a deal with Brookside Nurseries who supplied some bee friendly flowers for the stall.
During the show David Lord, Mark Blanchette and myself aided by Eric managed 3 live bee demonstrations a day. Only one person (a beekeeper) got stung over the 3 days on the finger whilst doing a live inspection with no gloves.

 

On the Saturday a swarm of Blenheim bees set up camp on one of the show gardens! With a lot of smoke it was driven into a skep and duly boxed ready to go into one of Gill Oliver’s hives.

Thanks to Jonathan and Kevin, the apiary mangers, who with their girls managed to produce over 200 jars of Oil Seed Rape honey for the show. We made around £1200 from honey sales.

 

Thanks to all those who helped run the stall over a very enjoyable weekend, which ended in a group hug* (unheard of in beekeeping circles!).

 

Peter Hawkins

* Editor’s Note: Sadly I have not been sent any pictures of the Group Hug