Skip to content

Shipston Branch Update – December 2023

2nd Monday meeting 11th December 2023

    This was of course the last meeting of 2023 and the Committee had planned for it to be a bit of a fun event.

    Arranged for the evening was:

    • A bring and tell session asking members to bring their best, and worst, items of beekeeping equipment.
    • A mead tasting competition with, again, the winner receiving a prize, and
    • A picture quiz – with a prize for the winning team

    And what a great evening it was. We had new and old members join us, the picture quiz went to a tie-breaker, there was a fascinating range of best and worst beekeeping equipment and there was a very dodgy result to the mead tasting (see below….).

    Before we get onto the details of the evening we must thank Paul and Julia Neal for arranging the lovely eats and nibbles, and Ray and Caroline Pearce for the wine, beer and soft drinks and for arranging the picture and mead competitions, and David Blower for booking the Brailes Village Hall.

    Ray Pearce, Shipston Chair and Dave Kelleher, Secretary
    Dave and Douglas Nethercleft

    Bring and Tell – Best and Worst Beekeeping Equipment

    What was interesting in this part of the evening was seeing items of beekeeping equipment that the owner thought was great but others didn’t even know it existed. Judy Owen brought her bee gym which she says the bees love (you’re going to have to look it up if you don’t know what it is). Liz Bates had an interesting variant on the ‘plunger’ type of queen catcher, so much so that I bought one myself (eBay, this morning, of course!). And it was good to see a number of home-made items.

    Graham Franklin with his home-made frame holder
    Douglas with a motor and blade repurposed as a soft-set honey stirrer
    David Blower with…..a bee comb?

    Mead Tasting

    We had about 9 different meads to taste and members were asked to put a tick against the one the thought best.

    And the result was….

    Irene Beever tasting the delicious nmeads brought in by members
    Ray Pearce announces that the winner of the best tasting mead is…..Ray Pearce!

    Picture Quiz

    Members arranged themselves into small teams on the tables that had been set up and scratched their heads at the questions. There was clearly a bee-related theme to all of them but that didn’t necessarily help…..

    In the end, with two teams tied on 9 points, it went to a tie-breaker with a vote on the best finishing line for the limerick.

    In the end a very successful final meeting of 2023.

    Gary Thomas
    Treasurer and Membership Secretary
    Shipston Beekeepers

    treasurer.shipston@wbka.org.uk