CBKA

23/08/2026

Lesley made this last week it was delicious

A honey cake that tastes of your honey 🍯

If you're a member of the BBKA, you'll know that we feature a recipe each month in BBKA News, created by the talented Diane Shepstone. Here's our August recipe for you to try:

New Classic Honey Cake
A lighter, modern take on a classic honey sponge. This version avoids the heavy caramelisation and dry crumb that can result from the long slow bake of traditional honey cakes, keeping the flavour light and floral.
The cake is delicious the day it’s baked but, like all honey cakes, the honey flavour deepens beautifully after a day or two. When you’re ready to serve, finish it with the whipped honey and sour cream buttercream and a scattering of pollen for an extra floral hit.

Time: 1 hour + cooling
Serves 10

Ingredients
Cake
190g Plain flour
1½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp Fine salt
190g Honey
140g Butter, melted
40g Flavourless oil
4 Eggs, medium (or 3 large)

Buttercream
90g Butter, room temperature
180g Icing sugar, sifted
65g Honey
45ml Sour cream, cold
Pinch of salt
1tsp Pollen or sprinkles (optional)

Method
Preheat your oven to 170°C (150°C fan) and line a 20x20cm square tin with parchment. (Tip You can use a 20cm round tin; add 10 minutes to the bake time)
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Whisk the cooled melted butter, oil, eggs, and honey until smooth and fully combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Beat until the batter is smooth and no lumps remain. It will be quite runny.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes or until the centre springs back and a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely.
Using an electric whisk, beat the butter for several minutes, scraping the bowl as needed, until pale and aerated.
Whisk in the sifted icing sugar until completely smooth.
Whisk in the honey briefly followed by the sour cream and salt. Mix only until smooth; don’t over-whip.
Pipe or spread onto the cooled cake and top with pollen or bright sprinkles.

Save this post and if you give it a try, let us know how it turns out.

06/06/2026

The Scottish Government Bee Health Team have issued the following for beekeepers across Scotland.

Notification of an outbreak of American Foulbrood (AFB) in Kincardineshire. This is the first finding of AFB in Scotland this year.

This outbreak concerns a single hive and was first reported to the Scottish Government by the beekeeper, with the disease being confirmed by SASA on the 4th of June 2026.

Please can beekeepers be reminded of the need to acquaint themselves with the symptoms of foulbrood diseases and how to carry out a full foulbrood inspection. All beekeepers should carry out at least one foulbrood inspection a year, but we recommend more frequent inspections for those in areas where disease has been confirmed.

SBA Members and local association secretaries have been emailed the full notice.

To find out more about the Foulbroods and how to spot them please visit

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foulbrood/

All BeeBase registered beekeepers within 3km from the infected apiary will also be alerted of this outbreak. To register your hives on BeeBase and receive updates please visit

https://www.nationalbeeunit.com

11/04/2026

Do you keep bees? Register on BeeConnected to receive spray notifications from local farmers.
https://beeconnected.org.uk/

14/01/2026

Welcome to the CovBee page, Coventry Beekeepers Association has been running for almost 100 years and are a charitable organisation to support and promote local honey bees and beekeepers.

We hold events yearly encouraging people to take up beekeeping, a taster/ apiary open day and a beginners weekend course.

For members we hold regular monthly meetings in the winter and weekly meetings at our apiary site in the beekeeping season.