Tuesday 11 September 2018

Saterday 08 sep: The 2018 bee convention in Malle

Hello readers,


Nothing new here around my apiary, but...

I went to a bee convention.




I probably didn't as much pictures as I supposed to for the blog, maybe next time I'll do a better job at it.
In the first picture you can see an up close of the goodie bag we received upon entering the convention.  (It's in dutch so don't try to make too much sense of it but here's what's on it:) On the top you can see the logo's of the two beekeepers organisations that helped to put this 'congress' together.  It's the AVIB (which stands for Antwerpse Vereniging voor Imker Belangen); An Antwerp Assosiation to protect the interest of beekeepers. and the 'Koninklijke Vlaamse Imkersbond' or Royal Flemish Beekeepersassosciation.
In the middle is the logo of the convention itself and beneath it are two government agencies that sponsored the event. (The Province of Antwerp and the department of agriculture and fishing)

Inside the bag was a button that could be exchanged for a lunch.  A ticket to collect a honney beer after the event was over and some pamflets and information on beekeeping in general along with the roster of the event.
The theme was 'the future of beekeeping; looking forward'.

It started of with a reception (free coffe, tea or water) to give people the time to arrive at the event.  The second picture there shows the amount of people gathered half an hour before the event started.

There was a stage and plenty of seats for the crowd and the first event was a speaker: Professor Hans Van Dijck.  He talked about insects in general under the title: The world through facet eyes: psychologie of insects in a humanized environment.  I must admit I dozed off (too much beer and not enough sleep the night before) but what I did pick up from it was very interesting.  If I have to summarize the speech to a conclusion I'd say we are fritting away at the habitat of others and in the long run that will cost us.

The second speaker, Thomas Van Pelt, a multicultural Belgian (I think) now keeping bees in Germany on the same hivebodies as me (Zander).  He adressed 4 topics and started off with modernisation of beekeeping.  He sees it as the future and I must say, using 2 buzzboxes already of my own, I can only agree.  The topic that resonated with me the most was his explanation of why chemical or biochemical treatments are only good for short term sollutions.  He didn't take it as far as me, who's trying to go treatment free, but hinted that Science had to help out with the genetic line of the varroa resistend bee and untill such time we should only use 'biotechnical interference' in the hive to suppress the varroa presence.  Another topic was the environment again.  Where do our bees (or other pollinators) get their food?  What do they give in return and how do we treat that environment.  He wants to return to a biological agricultural way of life.  Sure some numbers show that with treating production goes up 51% but without bees it goes down 76% !!  And treating = killing bees.  That was the jest of it anyway.

After Thomas it was time for some well deserved nutrition.  Belgian fries with steak and vegetables and time to take a stroll between the many stands of associations and vendors that came to the event.  One table picked my interest since it was the stand of honeybee valley.  And sure enough, they showed the pictures of the Asian hornets nest in Waregem that I talked about earlier on my blog!  I grabbed a folder but have yet to dig in to the details of how to protect yourself from those insects - and then I haven't decided to agree with the methods yet!  On the pamflet is this picture:


Ment to help you identify what kind of insect you're looking at in front of your hive in comparison to what a honeybee looks like.

After that I went to witness the panel discussion with members of the government and different organisations working for a better environment or that have connections with beekeeping.  There were 6 in total.  Dirk Degraaf from Honneybee valley, a woman from biological agriculture, a man representing nature (his organisation wants to protect all that is green on a local level), the local politian of agriculture (ao), the chairman of the royal flemish beekeepingassociation and Thomas Van Pelt as a beekeeper.  The moderator was a civil servant in the department of agriculture and he promissed to take what he heard to the ministers cabinet.

During the entire event (and I should've taken pictures here) there was a competition going on for the best label for honey.  There were about 30 entries and the one I voted for came in 3rd place (darnit).

I also took a good look at a showcase hive (that had a few bees escape from it)




That's all folks!

Bob Out

Sites to visit - Nine Lectures on Bees - lecture one.

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