Speaker: Margaret Thomas

We started beekeeping in 1974 under the tutelage of Ted Hooper the then County Beekeeping Advisor based at Writtle Agricultural College.

What we learnt from Ted was to examine a colony systematically. A short reminder of what to look for was his standard – the 5 questions: room, queen laying, colony build up and queen cells, stores and disease. A simple record card acted as an aide memoir became our guide.

Ted encouraged wider lookout on bees and the related topics, anatomy and physiology of the bee, nutrition and spring feeding with pollen substitute and supplement, queen rearing, other relevant insects and plants.

Working with him to achieve higher qualifications was a great pleasure. When coming across a knotty question from a correspondence course student Ted would respond to a phone call ‘I’ll phone you back’ and he did within 10 minutes with a reference. He is sorely missed.

Margaret Thomas is be covering Ted’s 5 questions, his work with Spring stimulation and Spring management which Ted taught to the student groups for example the pollen traps which groups all made to different designs. She will also cover areas that related to his time they shared together Essex.