Selby & District Beekeepers Association

21/10/2026

You can find local honey from our small member beekeepers listed on our website! 😊🍯🍯🍯

Happy National Honey Day 🍯🐝

Today we celebrate the remarkable honeys produced by beekeepers right across Britain with every jar reflecting the flowers, landscape and seasons of the place it came from.

And there’s more variety than you might think: look out for runny honey, smooth soft-set, chunk honey, or whole honeycomb straight from the hive, each with its own distinct texture, flavour and character.

So if you haven’t already, pick up a jar of local honey, share it with friends or family, and really savour it.

Not sure where to find some? The BBKA’s interactive honey map helps you track down beekeepers and local honey near you: https://buff.ly/SiTSHCb

Bought a jar? We’d love to see it.
Share a photo using and tell us how it tastes. 👇

06/10/2026

Our next Beginners Course is scheduled to start in early March next year and we are currently taking bookings for this upcoming event at the Drax Sports & Social Club.

As we will be keeping the number of delegates to a minimum, this is your chance to reserve your place and learn about the life and trials of the famous honeybee!

As part of your membership with us, you will also be able to attend our free hands-on practical sessions that will build your confidence in handling a colony of honeybees in readiness for you managing your very own colony of these incredible insects.

You can use the link below to find more information on our website where you can also download the Application Form to purchase and reserve your place on our course.

https://www.selbybeekeepers.org.uk/beginners

24/09/2026

If you grow dahlias you might see our bees enjoying them - another vital late summer source of food 🌸🐝🌼

08/09/2026

Please keep your eyes peeled for this invasive hornet and help protect native bees 🐝

See it, snap it, send it 🐝

The graphic below shows just how the Yellow-legged (Asian) hornet compares in size to some familiar insects. Here's what to look for close up (or as close as you're able to get!)

🔸 Size: smaller than our native European hornet
🔸 Body: mostly dark and velvety, with a single wide orange-yellow band near the end of the abdomen
🔸 Legs: distinctive bright yellow leg ends, as if they've been dipped in paint
🔸 Face: an orange face when seen head-on

By contrast, our native European hornet is larger and overall more orange and brown in colour. They're a gentle, valuable creature we don't want to harm. And of course our wasps and honey bees are smaller and more familiar.

If you think you've spotted a Yellow-legged hornet, take a photo from a safe distance and report it. Full guidance via the link in the comments.

23/08/2026

Sedums are hugely valuable late summer forage plants for honey bees and other pollinators. Definitely worth including some in your garden! 🐝

15/08/2026

🐝 Our very existence depends on bees and other pollinators. Yet these guardians of biodiversity are under threat from human activities.

The good news is that we can all help protect bees and support beekeepers by growing native plants, buying raw honey from local farmers, avoiding pesticides and taking climate action.

On Saturday's Honey Bee Day, join us in celebrating the vital role these pollinators play in our lives.

05/07/2026

Our honey bees are enjoying the fields of phacelia near Burn at the moment - collecting little baskets of purple pollen 💜

20/05/2026

On World Bee Day some honey bee facts — did you know?
A single honey bee makes just 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime, and a colony of honey bees can produce 10-14 kg of surplus honey in a good season.

Honey bees ‘waggle dance’, a sophisticated figure‑of‑eight movement that tells nestmates the direction and distance of food sources.

Worker bees change jobs as they age — from cleaning cells and feeding larvae to guarding the hive and finally foraging.

A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day during peak season, maintaining the strength and productivity of the colony.
Honey bees can fly at around 15 mph and visit up to 5,000 flowers in a single day, making them extraordinarily efficient pollinators.

Each colony contains one queen, thousands of female workers, and a few hundred male drones, whose sole purpose is to mate with a queen.

12/05/2026

Sycamore trees are flowering just now - like most flowering trees, an important food source for pollinators. So high up we hardly notice them, but aren't they beautiful 🤩

09/05/2026

Following on from introducing our Beginners to the bees last week, in this weeks session we focused on identifying the different elements that make up a colony of bees. We were identifying the Workers, Drones, Queen, Eggs, Larvae, Honey, Pollen and Propolis.

Everyone had a good session and a special thankyou to Jacqueline, Lesley, Cristina and Valentin for your help and support - couldn't do it without you!