Some of the beekeeping equipment, funded by the Manx Lottery Trust, arriving at the Training Apiary at Shenharra
We are very pleased to advise we have had funding for a large amount of equipment for our Teaching/Breeding Apiary at St Johns.
The Trust gave us £1,600 worth of tools, frames, foundation and nucleus boxes which will greatly help the ongoing work at the Apiary.
It is funding like this that makes it possible to keep the Apiary functioning without having to resort to broken and rotting bits and pieces, that was all we had left after using up all the good.
Many thanks to the Manx Lottery Trust for their generous sponsorship!
The Teaching/Breeding Apiary
The Apiary, set up by Keith Osborn using funds from our own Federation, is now going from strength to strength.
Because of the need to harvest natural swarms and to continue the operation of breeding, spearheaded by Tony Leadley and Breeshey Brew, we badly needed nuc boxes and all the associated gubbins.
The Lottery Fund has taken the burden of paying for these improvements off the Federation.
Roger Putman has taken on the job of Apiary Manager which involves a great deal of work organising our merry band of volunteers to man/woman the Apiary nearly every Saturday afternoon during the beekeeping Season. So far this has worked very smoothly and many improvements have been made by the volunteers.
New beekeepers are encouraged to visit on Saturday afternoons to ask questions and to learn beekeeping skills.
We very much hope that any members of the Federation who wish to see what is going on there and join in will feel they can just turn up and enjoy an afternoon amongst friends with the same enjoyment of our craft.
There may well be tea and biscuits too!
Post by Ed Officer, Cilla Platt
Really great news, well done to Cilla & helpers for getting the funding.
Fantastic! Well done everyone who is involved. I hope to come along soon and will bring a cake when I eventually do!