Trisha keeps around 40 colonies of locally-adapted bees on six apiaries in the Welsh Marches, breeding her own queens selectively. Some apiaries are close to ling heather, others to OSR, thus minimising the stress to man and bees of moving hives while giving a selection of honeys. With her partner Paul, Camlad Apiaries is run as a small, sustainable business supplying health food shops, delicatessens, village shops, and the most northerly castle in the UK.
Trisha is a BBKA Master Beekeeper, Project Manager with Bees Abroad (UK NGO), trustee of BIBBA, county Bee Recorder for Montgomeryshire, and member of both Shropshire Beekeeping Association and the Welsh Beekeepers Association.
A firm advocate of accessible continuing education and capacity building for all beekeepers, Trisha runs the BBKA Facebook group with a membership of 4300 and gives time and assistance with social media for other beekeeping charities. She is also the only beekeeper who is a Basic assessor for both the BBKA and the WBKA, and the BBKA Basic Assessment in Modern African Beekeeping and an active member of the WBKA Learning and Development committee.
Trisha finds her MSc in sustainable architecture and renewables and passion for photography both highly relevant to her NGO work mainly in Ghana at this time.
Lecture Title: “(The) Status Quo: Rocking all over the Hive ”
What makes a big box of stinging insects such a highly successful and adaptable superorganism?
A foray into many of the factors involved, including some of those conspiring to upset the equilibrium.