East Grinstead Beekeepers Association

Next Steps

The first thing to do when you decide that you want to keep bees is to join East Grinstead Beekeepers Association - click for membership form. This will have many benefits, including help and advice on starting up and also giving you the chance to handle bees before you spend any money. Members also receive a discount on our annual beginners course - which will provide the basic theory to help you start out in beekeeping, some initial practical skills and a chance to handle bees in the company of experienced beekeepers.

For the new beekeeper, the help and advice given can be invaluable. You should learn how to handle bees before you take the plunge as you may find that you don't like handling bees. A really full and busy hive at the height of the season can be very daunting at first. East Grinstead Beekeepers can help you with this at either an apiary meeting or at one of our member's own apiaries.

Most beekeeping groups, including ourselves, are affiliated to the BBKA and this provides benefits like insurance which can be useful. Also, reference BeeBase.

Be careful not to get too carried away by spending lots of money as a lot of the things in the beekeeping catalogues are not essential, especially for the new beekeeper - see our Equipment page.

Benefits

Membership of our division has many benefits, whether you are new to beekeeping or an experienced beekeeper. These include:

Monthly meetings at our Association apiary as well as at members' apiaries with experienced speakers on a wide variety of beekeeping subjects
Practical demonstration meetings covering everything from wiring a frame to honey extraction to candle making
Mentoring service for new beekeepers
WhatsApp group - for support & knowledge sharing in an instant
Monthly newsletter
Library of beekeeping books
Extraction equipment for a nominal hire fee
Winter meeting programme

Swarm collection service and distribution to members for a small fee
Discount on Bee Craft Magazine
Discount on The Beekeepers Quarterly Magazine
Monthly newsletter from the BBKA
Access to members area of the BBKA Website
Annual National Honey Fair
Insurance against third party claims and loss of bees through certain diseases
If you don't have room for bees, you can hire a plot for a nominal fee at our association apiary and benefit from the expertise & assistance of the Apiary Manager when inspecting your bees

More importantly than this however, can be that you will get to meet lots of other local, friendly beekeepers who you can discuss with, and can receive help from when needed. We also have a great social aspect to our club where you can socialise with other like minded people to discuss not only beekeeping but other similar areas of interest.

	Pollen chart
	Basic equipment
	Why we need bees
	General enquiry
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