SBKA Lecture Day - Feb 15, 2020

Tickets for our 2020 Lecture Day held on February 15 at Edgar Hall, 8 Cary Court, Somerton Business Park, TA11 6SB are on sale now!
The £5 cost includes tea and coffee but not lunch (!) -  book online via Eventbrite or send a cheque for £5 per ticket made payable to SBKA together with a S.A.E., to The Treasurer, Allways, West Shepton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 5UH
Programme
9.00 Coffee
9.30 Opening by Jackie Mosedale, President of SBKA.
9.35 'Through winter into spring': Clive de Bruyn
10.40 'Honey Bee mind/navigation': Prof. Lars Chittka
11.40 Coffee
12.10 'Bee stings': Dr. Nikos Tsiougkos
1.10 Lunch.
During the break Lynne Ingram and other AHAT members will be available to talk about the Asian hornet and answer any queries.
2.20 Thanks and Presentations
2.30 'How to make Mead and Melomels': Dinah Sweet
3.30 Raffle and Tea
4.00 'What I have learned from Beekeeping in the past fifty years': Clive de Bruyn
5.00 Close
Clive de Bruyn FIBKA Snr., BBKA Snr., N.D.B. Clive has been a beekeeper since the 1960s. He is one of the best-known and respected beekeeping authorities in Britain and Ireland. Based in Essex, where he runs over 100 colonies for queen-rearing, honey production and pollination. He is a prominent member of the Bee Farmers’ Association, where he has been the Education Officer since 1982. As well as being a bee farmer, Clive has studied, worked and presented papers within an international forum for many years and done much work in third world countries. In addition, he has written several books including the indispensable “Practical Beekeeping”.
Prof Lars Chittka FLS, FRES, FSB is a German zoologist, ethologist and ecologist distinguished for his work on the evolution of sensory systems and cognition, using insect-flower interactions as a model. He is also the founder of the Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary University of London, where he is a Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology. Chittka has carried out extensive work on the behaviour, cognition and ecology of bumblebees and honeybees, and their interactions with flowers. He developed perceptual models of animal colour vision, allowing the derivation of optimal receiver systems as well as a quantification of the evolutionary pressures shaping flower signals. Chittka also made fundamental contributions to the understanding of animal cognition and its fitness benefits in the economy of nature. He explored phenomena such as numerosity, speed-accuracy trade-offs, false memories and social learning in bees. His discoveries have made a substantial impact on the understanding of animal intelligence and its neural-computational underpinnings. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, many of them highly cited.
Dr Nikos Tsiougkos is an Allergy specialist and has been working in the UK in the last five years. He obtained his Specialty (Allergy and Clinical Immunology Degree) degree in Athens/Greece and holds a certificate of excellence in Allergy having sat the European Examination in Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI/UEMS). He has a master’s Degree in “Clinical Applications of Molecular Medicine”/ University of Thessaly, Greece. He speaks four languages and in his spare time he enjoys travelling and collecting fine art.
Dinah Sweet started her beekeeping with husband John, 40 years ago. Dinah Sweet completed a Diploma dissertation in Apiculture at Cardiff University on melissopalynology (the study of pollen grains in honey) supervised by the legendary Rex Sawyer, author with Robert Pickard of “Pollen Identification for Beekeepers”. Since then she has been examining honeys for commercial packers and giving talks on the topic to Beekeeping Associations. She has held positions within BIBBA and the Welsh Beekeepers Association and often gives talks. She wrote the National Honey Show booklet on Mead for showing and drinking She has been judging mead at the NHS for the last 10 years and also recently finished a number of years, working as a bee inspector.