Honey Show

The annual honey show is just a few weeks away.
The show will be held at Simpsons Garden Centre on Saturday 28th – Sunday 29th September.
Simpsons will have plenty of bee friendly plants in store and honey products as well as bulbs, seeds and books.

Meanwhile, Inverness-shire Beekeepers Association members will be on hand to talk about beekeeping along with our display hive.
The Honey Show will be open to all beekeepers while any members who enter can bring along honey for sale at the show. There are lots of different classes and all members are encouraged to enter as many as they can, even if it's just one jar of honey, a cake, or tablet.

If you're interested in entering have a look at the schedule below for class descriptions and rules.
Inverness Honey Show Schedule

This Years’ Apiary Works

Quite a bit of work has been done around the new apiary site since the grand opening in April this year.

Firstly, back in August, some landscaping was done around "Fred's Shed". The digger driver was our member Colin Robertson.

Just as well he knows his way around landscaping machinery as we nearly got stuck in a particularly wet part of the site – the tracks were completely submerged under mud. The efforts have made a big difference to the site and we now have a small permanent stream running through the site which the bees will appreciate next summer.

In October Des and I held our first 'Fencing Masterclass'. There is no end to the training opportunities available to IBA members! Margaret Lashley and Mark Paton attended and we were blessed with the best of weather on both days. We mended the fence along the road and put in a new strainer and entrance gate to close off the gap from the farm road.

We also put additional wire down the field fence with the adjacent field. This will keep the site free of sheep this winter so all our newly planted shrubs and trees will be safe. More plants are always needed if anyone is throwing out surplus perennial plants or shrubs that might be useful grazing for the club bees.
There is still about the same amount of fencing required on a further side of the site which we will tackle next year at a further 'masterclass'.

Regular maintenance is also required at Knocknagael during the summer – with enough volunteers it should amount to no more than an hour of work on a weekend morning once a month – so keep an eye out for dates published on the website and Facebook.
Come along and help the Apiary followed by a cup of tea and a chat about bees...

Highland Garden Fest

This past weekend Inverness-shire Beekeepers' Association ran a stall at Highland Garden Fest in Inverness Botanic Gardens. We had an observation hive along with us, which seemed to be a big draw, as well as some candle rolling wax which was so popular with younger attendees that we ran out. The event was a great success with regular queues of attendees looking to chat to a beekeeper or to find out about beekeeping courses.

A big thanks goes to Rebecca for organising the event and to Des for bringing along the bees.