Salisbury and District Beekeepers Association (SDBKA)
FULL MEMBERSHIP
£29
Full membership of the SDBKA entitles you to:
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Attend all general and social meetings of the Association.
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Receive SDBKA Newsletters.
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Membership of the British Beekeepers Association, which represents beekeepers at a national level.
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Receive by post monthly issues of the excellent BBKA newsletter, BBKA News.
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Public & Products liability Insurance up to £5 million.
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Bee disease insurance from BDI for up to three colonies (which can be extended for additional colonies).
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Access to the BBKA Examination Scheme.
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Borrow books from the Greville Library.
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Borrow branch equipment.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP
£6
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Attend all Autumn/Winter monthly social meetings.
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Friendship and help from fellow beekeepers
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Free advice on all beekeeping matters.
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Receive Association Newsletters.
SHOULD I JOIN AS FULL OR ASSOCIATE MEMBER?
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Generally members with their own bees should join as Full members (or upgrade their Associate membership) in order to enjoy the full range of Association benefits, such as equipment hire, as well as the benefits of BBKA membership, including public liability insurance, bee disease insurance and a subscription to the excellent BBKA News which arrives through the post each month.
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New members without their own bees can join as Associate members, and then upgrade their membership when they do get their own bees. Some prefer to join as Full members anyway, particularly to receive BBKA News which has lots of interesting and useful articles for beekeepers at all levels.
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GUIDANCE FOR PROSPECTIVE NEW MEMBERS
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If you’d like to find out more about beekeeping and what it involves before you join, you can read the Guidance for Prospective New Members of the SDBKA post by previous SDBKA Chair, Sally Nelson. on our Association blog.
HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER
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To join, please let us know that you'd like to become a member by using the "Contact Us" form at bottom of this page. We will then send you a link to register your details and get you signed up!
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Note that there's no joint membership of SDBKA, and we keep one membership record for each individual member. In the case of beekeeping couples, typically one half will sign up as full member, and the other half as associate (for an additional £6). Please complete an online form for each member (even if you're both at the same address).
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Membership always runs until the end of September, no matter when you join. Please see below for more about this, and what happens when you join in spring or summer.
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We encourage all our members keeping bees to register with BeeBase which is a national database used by the National Bee Unit for tracking and monitoring bee disease. Click here to register and for further details.
NOTE ON JOINING SDBKA IN AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER
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The SDBKA membership year runs from the beginning of October one year to the end of September the next. For various reasons, it's impractical to reduce the membership rate when joining part way through the year. Because of this, if you join in August or September you can do so as an Associate member, free of charge, and then renew as Associate or Full member in October.
You can join anytime throughout the year as a Full member, with full benefits straight away, and you'll be asked to renew the following October. Note that there is also a 40 day rule on the Bee Disease Insurance element of full membership: if you join after 31st March, cover only starts 40 days after the date you join.
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NOTE ON SIGNING UP FOR SWARM COLLECTION
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Full members of SDBKA have the option to sign up as swarm collectors. This means that:
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your postcode and landline and/or mobile telephone number will be automatically be added to the BBKA swarm page, which is intended to be used by members of the public when they find an unwanted swarm of bees
Those registering as swarm collectors should be aware that:
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you undertake to follow the BBKA swarm collector protocol. In particular, you should be competent to collect swarms, you will not sell the swarms for personal financial gain, and that if you are contacted by the public to collect a swarm, you will deal with that request — either by collecting the swarm, or passing on the request to our Swarm Coordinator Rob Whittick on 07810 684626
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you have protection under the BBKA Third Party Public and Products Liability insurance if a third party makes a claim for injury or loss while you are collecting a swarm. A condition of this protection is that you do not work at a height over 3m
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