The Beginnings in 1942

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World War II was in full swing in 1942: the merchant fleet was being harried and sunk by German U-boats in the Atlantic and Belfast had been blitzed in April and May 1941. At this time the UK was isolated and less than 50% self-sufficient in food production. Potential national starvation lay just around the corner!

It was in this period of crisis that the UK Government issued a call to beekeepers to put their expertise to good use for the pollination of fruit grower’s orchards and vegetable crops.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Agriculture arranged a meeting in Elmwood Avenue, Belfast on 31 October 1942 to form an Ulster Beekeepers Association (UBKA) as part of the Horticultural Development Board. 

Beekeepers from Belfast met later that day and decided to form a Belfast Beekeepers Association, with David Devlin elected as the Association’s first chairman. 

The minutes of the 1st AGM, held in the College of Technology, record that: 

“the Association was formed on 31st October 1942 at a meeting held in the Lecture Theatre of the Agricultural Buildings Queen’s University, Belfast following the formation of the central body, the Ulster Beekeepers Association.”

“The 13 Belfast beekeepers present proceeded to elect a chairman, secretary, treasurer and committee and arranged the first committee meeting for 30th November to draw up rules” (later approved at the 3rdcommittee meeting on 8 February 1943). 

The initial committee must have been very busy as the membership at the AGM was recorded as 171! 

The then Association split Belfast into areas, each serviced by a panel of experienced beekeepers acting as advisors. Following the AGM Mr McCombe gave a lecture on “the General management of Queens” and Mr Lucas exhibited his system for reducing condensation using a lime box.

In following years, meetings were held with a pattern of: September- the Honey Show; October – social evening and prize giving; November, February, March – lecture/ demonstrations and reports by members on International Conferences; January – AGM; June – field day trip to an apiary of special interest, for example to Mr H Clements in Newtownards where attendees were shown how to graft larvae for Queen breeding 

Petrol rationing and lack of suitable transport limited attendances at early meetings. However, membership continued to grow and when the government introduced a sugar ration for beekeepers in 1943 it rose dramatically. 

Application forms were issued through the Association for sugar, which was distributed in hessian bags by the Ulster Transport Authority.  The sugar allowance provided 10 lbs of sugar for winter feeding and 5 pounds for spring feeding per hive – not all of which reached the bees! 

The Association’s membership reached record highs in 1943, with 273 paid up members. Post war the severe winter in 1947 resulted in the loss of over 3000 colonies and saw membership decline to 130. It reduced further in subsequent years, down to less than 60 in the late sixties before recovering to 130 in 1977, with deregulation and freedom from governmental interference.  The average number of hives per site remained steady at around 3.5.

In the post-war years many of Northern Ireland’s Beekeepers Associations experienced similar reductions in numbers. The UBKA’s reports indicate that the number of associations fell from 33 to 7 over the period.

Over these years the Association meeting places changed several times, moving from Elmwood Avenue then YMCA Wellington Hall followed by UFU Hall, Presbyterian Hostel and Knock Presbyterian Church Hall. 

Training and education of beekeepers was always on the Association’s agenda. From time to time, the Association organised Beginners classes:  the most successful being organised by Bill Caldwell in the Rupert Stanley FE College in East Belfast.

The association also produced a newssheet edited by the chairman Mr W D McCombe (who held office 1944-1971!) and several leaflets on the topics of “Queen Rearing”, “Disseminating the Buckfast Bee” and the “Heather Venture”.

In 1950 at the 7th AGM passed the resolution: “that the Ministry of Agriculture in consultation with the UBKA be requested to undertake the necessary steps to supply the needs of Ulster Beekeepers with a view to improving the strain of bees in Northern Ireland”. 

In 1959 two breeder Queens from the new Buckfast strain were imported for the sum of £2. Unfortunately, one Queen died, and the other was lacking in fecundity and there were no worthwhile offspring. In subsequent years this project was taken over by Greenmount Agricultural College and upwards of 100 Queens were available each season. 

Apiaries were regularly inspected by Ministry of Agriculture officials under the Bee Pest Prevention Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 and those found with problems were destroyed. The main diseases were Nosema, AFB and Acarine. 

In 1960 there was an outbreak of Nosema and Foul brood at the Greenmount Queen breeding site and all beekeepers with Greenmount sourced Queens were inspected. Inspections were abandoned in 1970 after repeal of the Bee Diseases Act.  

The minutes of the 1963 AGM indicate that the Association was concerned about the plight of bumble bees and the effects of pesticides on bee populations 

The annual Honey Show featured regularly in the minutes and the affairs of the Association. However, its existence was tenuous and dependent on the honey harvest of that year. In good years it attracted over 100 entries and in bad years it was cancelled. 

The first Honey Show was held in September 1949 in the Wellington Hall in conjunction with the Belfast Chrysanthemum Society show.  This was a grand affair attracting large crowds as chrysanthemum growing was very popular after the war.  Prizes were awarded for the best section exhibit – the Smallholder Medallion, and a Smallholder Blue Riband for the overall best exhibit.

In 1960 W J Artt presented a new hive for the beekeeper with the most points gained in the show and in 1962 the Newtownards Association presented the Belfast Association with a ”very nice cup” as that Association had folded.  

The name of the Association was changed to its current one, the Belfast and District Beekeepers Association, in 1974.

Jim Fletcher