On Friday I attended a number of lectures and the trade exhibition
My plan for lectures was
Wild honey bees in Britain - Catherine Thompson - This was cancelled and Dan Basterfield stepped in and gave his talk on Nutrition for honey bees.
Dan Basterfield gave an excellent talk on the nutrition that bees need and how in the UK with more diversity of plants makes for healthier bees, with comparison to bees that are forced to live on mono cultures. Bees need protein which they get from pollen and the more types of pollen that bees are collecting from the better. They need essential amino acids just as humans and do and don't thrive well on just one type of pollen.
Reading Bees - Ken Basterfield
Ken gave an interesting informal lecture in which he explained how he has improved his skills over the years by studying not just his bees but others bees and the more exposure you have to different bees the more you will learn. The point of his talk was the more experience you have the better. Take the time to have a proper look and study, not just the BBKA modules, but books and articles that have been written and make sure that you are think about what your are seeing. He regularly talks to his bee inspector as the bee inspector will have seen more and is more knowledgeable because he handles more colonies and is more exposed to different bees. In hindsight this was my favorite talk although at the time I didn't enjoy it as much as it was informal.
Beenomics: tools for bee health - Jay Evans
Jay is from the States and gave a rather technical talk on the research he has been carrying out in the states. Jay is a bee keeper but firstly a scientist and that was evident from his talk.
Age distribution in a colony - Sjef van der Steen
Sjef from Holland gave a light hearted talk about some research he has been doing on bees in Holland. He has studied where bees are in the hive and what they are doing at particular times during a bees lifecycle.
Inbetween lecture I hit the trade stands talked to couple of people. I bought a couple of books but later found they would have been cheaper on amazon. I also bought a couple of wax moulds for candles. Plans to make more candles in the next couple of weeks.
On the Sunday I attended a single Session Celia Davis Introduction to BBKA Module 6 course
We went over Biological Terms, looked at various pheromones and glands that bees have. The also heard about various dances that the bees does and also the differences between summer and winter bees. The various roles that bees do in the hive and when.
Some of the things I had studied for this exam were in the module 5 exam.
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