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Chairman's Address
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Chairman's Address
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Annual General Meeting 2005 - Chairman's Address
Welcome
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here for this the 14th. Annual General Meeting of Galtee Bee Breeding Group. It is wonderful to see such a great turn out of members from the four corners of Ireland. I would especially like to welcome the delegates from the Ulster Bee Improvement Group who have travelled so far and indeed we have long distance travellers from the Dee Breeding Group in Co. Louth, the Midlands Breeding Group in Westmeath and the Co. Offaly Breeding Group, We have delegates here from many other counties including Kerry, Wexford, Wicklow, Kildare, Dublin, Galway and Clare.
I would also like to welcome some new or prospective members who have expressed a wish to join our ranks for the coming year and I do hope that we can help them in their endeavours to improve their local strains of native Irish Dark Bees. With this influx of new blood we know that this organisation will gain new vigour as a result of your fresh enthusiasm and courage. A very special welcome also to the President, officers and members of the Executive Committee of FIBKA and to the President officers and members of the Executive Committee of UBKA.
Successful Year
The year 2005 can be regarded as one of the most progressive years so far for GBBG. This fact is well documented in the Secretary's report which has already been circulated. The main highlights of the year for me were the very successful Black Bee Session of lectures at Apimondia, the silver medal awarded to the GBBG website, the six coach tours that visited our breeding apiary at Dun Aonghusa on the Fridays before and after the Apimondia Conference, and last but not least the Beard of Bees featuring Philip McCabe who for the first time ever wore a mantle of 200,000 Dark Irish Bees with nothing underneath except an underpants. May I take this opportunity on your behalf to congratulate Philip on his wonderful performance. GBBG are extremely proud to have been associated with this major undertaking and it has shown to the world that our native Irish bees can be just as docile as any other race.
These momentous events which helped to put Irish beekeeping on the world map did not happen of their own accord. There was a tremendous amount of work involving many members of GBBG before and during each of these events and those of you who put in so much time and effort can feel justly proud of these brilliant achievements.
Another feature that struck me about this past year is the fact that it was the best honey year we have had for some time and many members reported average yields in excess of 100 lbs per hive. Two of our members with scale hives reported an average gain of 14 - 16 lbs. per day during the week from 10th. to 17th. July when temperatures reached 22° - 26° C. These colonies were headed by Galtee queens which proves that our bees can be productive as well as docile.
The Apimondia Conference
Many of our members took an active part in the conference. Their names are too numerous to mention. Probably for the first time ever Irish beekeepers took part in a lecture session of Apimondia. Many thanks to those who participated in The Black Irish Bee Session. You really did us proud. Three of the preselected team of nine were unable to partake due to medical appointments. However we were fortunate in finding replacements as Terry Clare did an excellent job of chairing the session in place of Albert Knight while Fergus Kelly co-editor of "Bechbretha" stepped in instead of Jim Ryan to give a presentation on "The Ancient Irish Bee Judgements". Claire Waring presented husband Adrian's talk and others taking part were Eoghan, Jacob, Dennis and Dorian Pritchard and Micheál Mac. All credit to Redmond for videoing this session even though the poor lighting was causing him problems. Indeed Redmond has many, many hours of footage on the many aspects of this great conference and he took special pride in covering as much as possible of the various events in which the Irish took part.
A unique aspect of this Apimondia Conference were the workshops involving many of our members including Claire Chavasse, John Donoghue, David Lee, Dennis Ryan, Ben Harden, and Ruary Rudd. June Hughes was also there with her beeswax demonstration and Jane and Loretta from Wicklow who fashioned a beautiful skep. The first ever World Honey Show exceeded all expectations and congratulations to all who were involved in organising this special event as well as the judges, stewards, and exhibitors especially those members who won trophies. Eddie, Graham, Michael G. and Micheál Mac were also involved in organising and judging of the contests.
Many of our members were among the army of stewards who helped to make the conference a resounding success. Many more of our members were deeply involved at all levels in organising this world beekeeping conference and have put in months and years of work to ensure its success. At whatever level we were involved we may feel justly proud of this unforgettable milestone in Irish beekeeping. Congratulations to all those members who won prizes at the World Honey Show especially Dennis, Claire and Tony. Members of BIBBA played a prominent part also and the new BIBBA stand was the centre of much attention. Our Irish Honey Queen, Claire Kehoe did us proud and did some excellent public relations work for Irish beekeeping.
GBBG Website
Heartiest congratulations to Dave Cushman who won the silver medal for his entry of the GBBG website at Apimondia. Jacob Kahn deserves credit also as it was his initiative that set up the website in the first place. It was Dave who put a great deal of work into it in recent times and it was a wonderful achievement to obtain such an award in the face of very strong opposition. I think he should have been supplied with more material in the form of articles and photos. I do hope that more members will co-operate with him over the next two years and who knows he may go for gold at the next Apimondia in Australia.
Dave has also taken over the management of the GBBG discussion list and all members with e-mail addresses should join this as it provides an ideal method of communicating with each other and sharing vital information with each other so as to keep up to date with new developments and technology especially as regards treatment of diseases etc. Jacob is our authority on morphometry and he continues to study this aspect of bee improvement in great detail. We are very fortunate to have such people with so much skill and expertise among our members.
Our Editor, Claire entered the "Four Seasons" in the magazine section without success. It had to compete with the glossy magazines of the larger beekeeping organisations. I am sure if there had been a special section for Newsletters it would have received an award. All credit to Claire for producing this informative and newsworthy publication so promptly on a regular quarterly basis.
Breeding Groups
As we embark on our 15th. year of bee improvement it is very heartening to see new breeding groups being formed in various parts of the country involving members of GBBG and other like minded beekeepers from their local beekeeping Associations. The establishment of a network of such autonomous breeding groups is probably the best way forward. This would help to ensure the conservation and improvement of a wide variety of strains of native bee that still survive in this country.
All that is needed to start up one such breeding group is two or three people who have an interest in improving the bees they have. Evaluate, record, select and cull, raise some queens and share them and your experience with other beekeepers in the neighbourhood. Experienced members of GBBG will always be willing to provide help and advice. GBBG started with four members and had no more than six members in the first five years as we took our first tentative steps in bee improvement. We got a lot of help from BIBBA, especially from Albert Knight. Due to failing eyesight Albert has had to hand over the post of Groups Secretary. Albert has been replaced as BIBBA Groups Secretary by Sandra Unwin, who will be more than willing to give assistance to any bee improvement group who contacts her. As well as producing the "Bee Improvement" magazine, BIBBA is engaged in producing new publications each year. Members should make use of these so as to learn up to date methods of queen rearing, etc. The three guide booklets produced by Albert this year provide much information for the bee improvement group or individual beekeeper starting off. No doubt there will be further publications in this series.
Breeding Apiary
Similar to other apiaries in this locality we had a number of colony losses in the spring of 2005 mostly due to queen failure. The poor weather conditions of spring and early summer were not conducive to early replacement of losses but with the advent of good weather in July it was possible to divide some colonies so as to make up the shortfall. We managed to harvest 350lbs of surplus honey as well as producing more than 100 breeder queens for members and as replacement queens in the breeding apiary. Revenue from sales of queens and honey amounted to about €1,000.
A great deal of improvement and maintenance was carried out during our work days and all credit to the members who turned out on those occasions as well as those who helped to cater for our many visitors. The biggest development was the establishment of a bee house which now holds six polystyrene hives for breeding. Apart from catering for six coach tours of Apimondia delegates we were visited by many parties of beekeepers before and after the main event of Apimondia. Due to the pressure of all these activities it was not possible to devote the necessary attention to our breeding work at Dun Aonghusa, but Redmond Williams did find time to spend two days on I.I. with the result that twenty queens were inseminated with semen from selected drones. Hopefully most of these will survive the winter for further progeny testing. In 2006 we will be in a better position to concentrate on the all important work of selective breeding at Dun Aonghusa.
Congratulations
May I congratulate our members who have been elected for the first time to various posts on the Executive of FIBKA including President, Graham Hall, Vice-President Dennis Ryan, PRO, Philip McCabe, and Executive Members, Gerard Williams and Eoghan Mac Giolla Coda. Congratulations to Norman Walsh who had the honour of performing the official opening of the British National Honey Show in London. Michael G. and Micheál Mac gave a demonstration on "Judging a Class at the National". The latter was one of the many honey judges and acting as judge's stewards were Claire Chavasse, Claire Kehoe, John Summerville Gerard Williams and Michael G. Congratulations to those members who won prizes in London especially Gerard Williams who won the World Cup and also Norman Walsh, Claire Chavasse and John Summerville. For some winters past we held a study group here in the Band Room with excellent results. The Preliminary and Intermediate exams were held here again last year and I would like to congratulate those who were successful. To those who are continuing their studies I would say keep up the good work. Remember there is no such thing as failure. In the study of beekeeping the real success is your enjoyment of the learning process and the sharing of your knowledge with fellow beekeepers.
Thanks and Good Wishes
My sincere thanks to all those who helped to ensure the continued success of the Galtee Bee Breeding Group. A special word of thanks to our Secretary, Michael Maunsell, our Treasurer Jim Ryan who we hope has fully recovered from his recent illness, our Editor, Claire Chavasse, our Website Manager, Dave Cushman, to James Power who looks after the members Colony Appraisals, to Jacob Kahn for his work on morphometry, to Dennis Ryan past Secretary who continues to take an active part in the running of the group whenever possible, to Redmond Williams who has many functions, but as video camera man and video librarian has spent many long hours in editing material recorded during the year so as to produce many educational DVDs on bee improvement for GBBG. Redmond has also done much work on the accounts since Jim Ryan became ill. A special word of thanks to those who contributed articles and photographs to "Bee Improvement" magazine as well as the GBBG website including Gay, Eddie, Michael Maunsell and Eoghan Mac.
May I conclude by wishing all our members a very pleasant and prosperous year in beekeeping and bee improvement.
Go mbeirimid go leir beo ar
an am seo aris.
May we all be alive at this time next year.
Micheál Mac Giolla Coda - Chairman.
Originated... 27 January 2006, Email Address Changed... 10 October 2006,
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