1,000 beekeepers descending on Newport
More than 1,000 beekeepers will be causing a buzz in Newport this weekend at the Beekeepers Shropshire Spring Convention.
The threat of Asian Hornets will be top of the agenda at the meeting, which is set to take place at Harper Adams University.
Attendees will hear lectures from a Spanish professor, Xesus Feas from Santiago de Compostela University, who has been trying to develop a toxic bait for the hornets that does not affect other insects.
His work is a reaction to a rising threat from the insects. In Galicia, in Spain, 20 per cent of emergency calls were about the insect last year.
From the Channel Island of Jersey, former beekeeping association president Bob Hogge and John de Carteret will describe how they refined their tracking methods last year to find many more of the nests of these hornets.
Nigel Semmence, contingency and planning officer for the National Bee Unit, will describe tracking down the nests in the UK last year and how the NBU will tackle any further incursions of Asian Hornets and also help any associations not up and ready with an Asian Hornet Action Team.
The convention will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
