Welcome to the WBKA website
The Welsh Beekeepers’ Association is a Registered Charity (Registration No 509929). We are an umbrella organisation which provides services for nearly all the local beekeeping associations in Wales. We represent those associations and individual beekeepers by liaising with the Welsh government, the United Kingdom government, and international bodies.
All full members of our affiliated local associations are automatically members of WBKA. Individual membership is also available.
Here you can learn how to start beekeeping, find out how the Welsh Beekeeping Associations can help you, and discover what WBKA is doing to support bees and beekeeping.
Our regular webinars are free and open to all. Our Annual Convention is held each Spring and is the ideal place to meet and talk to beekeepers and beekeeping suppliers. If you can’t find what you need on this web site please contact us!
Please note: We are starting a major overhaul of this website, which will take several months. We apologise if some parts of the site are incomplete. Please bear with us – we will bring you a new, much improved site early in 2021.
Quick links
WBKA WEBINARS
Our next free webinar is at 7.30 pm on Thursday 10th December:
Preparing Honey and Wax
for Christmas gifts or for show
by Master Beekeeper Joyce Nisbet
Please click on the link above to see more about the webinar and to register
Click here to see recordings of previous webinars
News for Beekeepers
Updated advice for Beekeepers during Covid-19 from the Welsh Government was issued in October and can be found here: http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/public/News/news.cfm#261
The Asian Hornet in the UK The scientific journal Nature has published a detailed report on the sightings of Asian Hornets in the UK from 2016 to 2019 and the follow-up investigations.
You can read it here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-76690-2.pdf
National Hive Count 2020. The National Bee Unit are calling on all beekeepers to update their number of 2020 over-wintering hives on BeeBase by 31st December. It is hoped that all Welsh beekeepers will do this. https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/login.cfm?relocate=/secure/beekeeper/hiveCensus.cfm
Healthy Bee Plan 2030 has recently been published by DEFRA to cover Wales and England for the next 10 years. The Plan is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defra-launches-the-healthy-bees-plan-2030-to-help-protect-honey-bees
More Webinars for the dark days of winter Along with the WBKA, other National Associations are running free webinars that beekeepers may find interesting. You can find past and upcoming webinars here:
Scottish Beekeepers Association: https://bit.ly/3d2OnDs ; BIBBA: https://bibba.com/webinars/
The Federation of Irish Beekeepers Associations: https://www.eventbrite.ie/o/federation-of-irish-beekeepers-associations-clg-31215560997
The Ulster Beekeepers Association will be holding a series of webinars in January and February on the theme Key Concepts For Every Bee-Keeper. They have issued a flyer here. Webinar joining details will be available later.
BBKA Spring Convention videos (Tom Seeley): https://www.bbka.org.uk/spring-convention-videos
The UK National Honey Show in October this year was a virtual event. Over 4,500 registered and some 2,500 attended over the three days. Most were from the UK but some 85 countries were represented. The platform will remain open to those that registered until April 2021. Videos of the lectures are available here: https://www.honeyshow.co.uk/lecture-videos.php
Events and Information
Improving your Beekeeping
Read More
Feeding Bees – a new WBKA booklet
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