Frequently Asked Questions

There are three options for membership:

Individual Member - £25.00

Family Membership – £35.00 (covers two adults living at the same address)

Junior Membership - £10.00 (up to 18 years).

You can come along to any of our monthly meetings shown in the Events section, and sign up and pay your subscription there and then, or you can join online from the Membership section, and pay by card.

We would love to meet you in person, so please come along to the meetings and have a chat (usually about bees).

You can buy used equipment and hives, but because of the risk of disease transmission, we would recommend starting with new hives and hive parts.

Most beekeepers use a ‘National’ type hive, so that parts can be interchanged as required. A complete hive usually consists one brood box, and two honey ‘Supers’, plus floor and roof, and possibly a crownboard. (Don’t worry it will all become clear when you get started!)

• National wooden hive (flat pack – requires assembly) - from £125.00
• Frames and foundation for brood box (x12) - from £50.00
• Stand for hive – (can be homemade) - from £25.00
• Bee Suit – from £55.00
• Hive tool, Smoker, Brush etc. - from £40.00
• Bees – these are approx. £25.00 per frame (start with six) - from £150.00

This will get you started with one hive, and if successful, you can split each year and double your colonies (more bees = more honey).

There will be a course starting in January, and it will take place in Dromore, but the course details have not been finalised yet. As in the past, the course is administrated by CAFRE at Greenmount, who oversee the enrolments and finance side. Link is on our education page.  Or click link below:

https://www.cafre.ac.uk/business-courses/introduction-to-beekeeping/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGfO6xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfn6LxrLutl0Xbm-fjkfFrbxNFrdAbw_gkiQs4BolsfgMFngiMqY8PrznQ_aem_zZlKJ5iVLlE6TCXnIhvm5A

DBKA recommend that you source your bees locally, and do not import bees from outside the island of Ireland. This is to reduce the chances of diseases and pathogens from imports infecting our native stocks.

Any of the committee members will be able to recommend a local beekeeper who is selling bees each year. Please ask an experienced beekeeper advice before buying bees from any source.

Aggressive behaviour can be caused by several factors, and can change due to time of year, weather, forage conditions, beekeeping mistakes, queen influences or loss.

Most aggressive colonies can be down to the influence of the queen, and changing the queen usually sorts that out. Also if the colony has lost their queen, they will be more ‘tichy’ and not as pleasant to handle.

Thundery weather will cause the bees to be on edge, and can cause aggressive behaviour. Bees do not like dark woolly clothing, or strong perfume or deodorant, so dress appropriately. 

Removing honey from the hive must be done carefully so as not to annoy the bees.

We can only try to recover honeybee swarms/colonies, so if it's wasps or bumble bees, they will not be moved by the Volunteer Swarm Collectors.

To help identify what type of bees are involved, its best to take a picture with your phone, and pass this on to a Volunteer Swarm Collector. This will help decide on the best actions to be taken.

A list of Volunteer Swarm Collectors can be found here. While every effort will be made to save honeybees, swarms down chimneys and in other dangerous places may not be able to be recovered safely, and may have to be destroyed.