Newbattle Bee Academy.

I made a visit to the Newbattle Bee Keeping Academy, a rather posh name – but then they have done rather a lot for the Scottish bee keeping fraternity; at least, they have as far as the Lothians and Borders are concerned. They started about 10 years ago as Lamancha BKA which gave some authorities a little problem as they didn’t know how to pronounce the name, that would have had Miguel de Cervantes turning in his grave. After a couple of years there were some issues between the land owner and some of the groups he had initially encouraged and supported, they resulted in the bee keepers looking for new premises. Every cloud, as they say, a superb apiary site materialised at Newbattle College with a derelict but waterproof cottage and life suddenly became much brighter. A few years ago, the bee keepers were offered another derelict building, this time a World War Two hut; the enthusiasts buckled down and carried out extensive renovations and the place now contains a comfortable meeting room with good teaching facilities.
 
Most of the handful of founder members are still around, though, like myself, they are taking a back seat and letting the youngsters(?) get on with it, and are doing a magnificent job. Over the years the membership has grown from the original half dozen to about 60 and I have lost track of how many novice apiarists we have trained.
 
At today’s meeting, one of our members gave a talk on bumble bees, and I suddenly became aware how much knowledge about the critters has moved on in the last decade. It’s all down to a group at Stirling University who set up The Bumble Bee Conservation Trust, presumably to help fund their research. They have taken some of my money in membership fees and, if that’s what they do with it, I’m more than happy.