I M Y B   2017   

On behalf of the British Beekeepers Association I would like to thank you so very much for supporting our International Meeting of Young Beekeepers which was held at Marlborough College, Wiltshire in July of this year.

The grant allowed us to communicate to a wide cross section of the world’s beekeeping community from such diverse countries as India, Ukraine and closer to home, Ireland. This is just to highlight a few of the participating countries that enjoyed this fantastic event.

The standard of beekeeping from our competitors was extremely high and I personally learnt about the world culture of beekeeping from a new perspective. In Europe for example, beekeeping is fully integrated into the mindset of young people in a way that is distinct from our young beekeepers in the UK.

Our international meeting was regarded as a launch event that would help form the basis of a wider strategy to engage with young people interested in beekeeping and indeed the environmental questions the ancient craft generates. Such was the interest in this event that we had a special feature on BBC’s Countryfile where Anita Rani, one of the key presenters took a keen interest in helping to develop our young beekeepers.

As a result of this we are actively developing schools projects and we have a commitment to put education at the heart of our activities over the coming years.

Once again, thank you for supporting our International Young Beekeepers

George Brown

BBKA Relationship Manager                                                                            Photo by David Shale@BBKA News