Monday 15 August 2011

The Future

It's all gone quiet
Several non-members have commented that there have recently been few posts on this website/blog and were wondering whether YABeeP had wound up. I'd like to make it clear that this is certainly not the case.

Given its success and steady growth the amount of work it was taking to run the YABeeP group was getting too much for one person (me!) so something had to give. I did some thinking and reconfirmed that my priorities had not changed  - to establish and help run a local bee-friendly peer support group. Our website/blog was being used mostly by non-members from across the globe so should no longer be my priority - hence few posts.

The Future
We are going to look at the future of YABeeP and how we should go forward from here, hopefully at our next meeting in September. I am optimistic that one or two volunteers will come forward to help share the load running whatever vision for our future that we decide upon.

Maybe part of this will be an update and re-write of the website; some of the earlier stuff certainly needs redrafting.

My own view is that this site should be a description of who we are and what we stand for, it should give information on when we meet, how to join us, our local swarm catching service, plus also some basic information on bees.

I have always felt that the "how to..." part of keeping bees using the bee-friendly methodology we employ should be for others better qualified than us to advise on in books and websites. That said, I find that there are still no comprehensive books or websites aimed specifically at new bee-friendly beekeepers, it's still a case of gleaning some information from here and some from there - very confusing for someone new to this world.

Consequently we may also have to continue plugging that gap ourselves for our members by providing signposting/guidance drawing on this piecemeal advice and our own experiences along the lines of some of our existing pages such as our Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive series of pages.

If we do this then, of course, it would make sense to publish it on our site so a wider audience can take advantage of it should they want to. It's even been suggested that we should make such advice available as pdf downloads so that it can be easily printed and used away from a pc.

All of this involves quite a lot of work, much of which I guess will be done over the winter when our bees are less of a distraction, so don't expect huge change soon. Rest assured however YABeeP is alive and well, if you want proof come to our next meeting!

Robin Morris – YABeeP - 15th August 2011