YABeeP aims to provide peer support to individuals and families who want to encourage both wild and honey bees and maybe keep bees themselves. We advocate using bee-friendly natural bee-keeping methods. Where our members keep honeybees they do so primarily for the benefit of the bees themselves, not in order to exploit them for forced honey production or personal profit¹.

2013 Meeting dates:

• February 9^th - Meeting
  - this month's topic "Types of Bees" - Ali Twigg
• March 9^th - Meeting
   - this month's topic "Understanding 'Natural Beekeeping'" - Robin Morris
• April 13^th - Meeting
   - this month's topic "Getting Your Bees" - Robin Morris
• May 11^th - Meeting - this month's topic "Planting for Bees & pollinators" - Simon Johnson. Simon is back by popular demand. Having trained and studied as a Parasitologist Simon's enthusiasm and love of his subject genuinely had us enthralled at his 2011 talk, especially his horror tales about Alien and vampire insects. 
• June 8^th - Meeting
• July 13^th - Meeting
• August 10^th - Meeting
• September 14^th - Meeting
• October 12^th – Meeting
• November 9^th – Meeting
• December 14^th - Meeting

Place & time

For 2013 our programme starts in February running through the year. We will continue to hold our meetings on the second Saturday of each month starting at 10:30am. This year we will meet in The Conservatory, Claverham Village Hall – click here for map. Meetings last around 2 hours and, weather permitting, includes a chance to see bees in action.

Why do we meet?

Meetings allow us to:

• welcome new members to learn about our aims and principles and decide whether they wish to join us;
• provide an environment to network with each other to expand our knowledge, ask questions and share new ideas and thoughts on helping bees;
• provide an opportunity to get hands on with bees (dependant on weather of course) and see a working hive/bee box;
• meet socially and enjoy the occasional BBQ, picnic, etc., after all life’s not all about bees.

Meeting format

YABeeP believes in holding informal meetings; we don't instruct our members or provide formal training courses but use a 'learning through doing with support' philosophy. Meetings are used to provide peer support and help for those new to bees as well as share experiences and learning amongst those who already keep them. We also often have short themed talks at our meetings, mostly given by our own members (volunteers always needed!) but occasionally bringing in a local(ish) expert. Weather permitting, we provide an opportunity to let members get up close and personal with bees and experience the workings of the various bee homes we use following the formal meetings.

Workshops

In addition to our monthly meetings we also arrange practical hive building workshops. These tend to all day affairs which allow members to build their own hives for honey bees or homes for bumbles and solitary bees. As well as being highly productive – you should expect to complete your project within the day - the workshops held to date have all been great social events!

New for 2013 we are also running two skep building days for members.

These workshops are only open to YABeeP members who are notified of the dates privately. They will not be published on this website in advance.

If you wish to join one of our meetings we'd love to see you, just come along!

Sal Pearson
Chair, YABeeP Steering Group

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¹For a fuller explanation of what we mean by bee-freindly 'natural beekeeping' see this page.