OKEHAMPTON Beekeepers' Association held its last meeting of the year at Shelley Methodist Hall, South Zeal.

More than 30 members had gathered to hear a talk given by Clare Densley, the new Seasonal Bee Inspector, on the wide ranging subject heading "Why do we keep bees?"

Clare started her talk with a brief recap on how she started beekeeping 20 years ago.

This included her experiences from beginning with a single colony bought from Exeter Bee Supplies, through to beekeeping on an industrial scale at Buckfast, and her current job as Seasonal Bee inspector which started this summer.

The talk was augmented by a series of Clare's own beekeeping photographs which ranged from those taken at small apiaries whilst on inspection visits (including one of a hive situated on a hen house roof!) to photos of the Buckfast enterprise and complex machinery for automating the extraction process; a sort of production line with frames in at one end and dried cappings and liquid honey out at the other.

Clare works with two other beekeepers at Buckfast. Between them they now look after more than 400 colonies of bees.

Buckfast adheres to a rigourous swarm control regime during the summer with weekly inspections of each colony.

Queen cells are removed to prevent swarming and queens are marked and clipped (clipping further impedes swarming).

The weekly inspection regime requires each beekeeper to go through 30 hives a day.

The queens used at Buckfast today are no longer the (Bro Adam) Buckfast strain but are strong egg laying hybrids.

These bees can prove sometimes more feisty to handle than the gentle Buckfast bee, but are very effective at producing honey, the primary goal of the Buckfast beekeeping enterprise today.

Honey production this season was six tons which was very good as the foraging season in July was fairly wet. All of the honey is sold through the Abbey shop.

Clare's talk included some good practical advice and the photographs showed examples of different bee diseases.

Members were invited to identify photos frames showing evidence of European Foul Brood (recently found in this area) and American Foul Brood (thankfully not occurring within Okehampton branch area).

Clare's presentation concluded with a questions from members. The meeting ended on a seasonal note with mulled wine, mince pies and home made biscuits.

The next branch meeting will be on Tuesday, January 12, at Shelley Methodist Hall, South Zeal starting at 7.30 pm.

Richard Ball, the National Bee Inspector will be giving a talk on the subject "Swarm Control – Investing in the future".