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2023-12-31-accounts

Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association

Trustees’ Report

Year Ended 31st December 2023

The Bee Improvement & Bee Breeders Association is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales No 1200969.

The charity commission approved the new CIO in November 2022 and the assets of the previous

unincorporated charity (Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association No 273827) have been transferred to the new CIO. Those who were members of the unincorporated charity have had their membership transferred to the new charity.

The Charity’s Bankers are:

The following banks used by the unincorporated charity will be closed when any final receipts have cleared:

The Auditing Accountants are Azets, Ruthlyn House, 90 Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 2SP

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Trustees in 2023:

Roger Patterson President Chair (Acting) from 13.12.2023 Lead Trustee: Education, CaSCA and Publications Lead Trustee for liaison with the BBKA Lynn Cartwright: Secretary 04.09.2023 Co-opted as Trustee from 15.05.2023 Alla Neal Treasurer Nick Mawby Lead Trustee: Membership & Membership Services Website Manager Jo Widdicombe Lead Trustee NatBIP Chair from 16.05.2023 to 13.12.2023. Brian Holdcroft Lead Trustee: Groups Lead Trustee: Special Apiary Projects Terence Hitchman Lead Trustee: BIBBA Monthly Peter Jenkins Emma Buckley Co-opted as Trustee from 13.11.2023 Karl Colyer Co-opted as Trustee from 15.05.2023 Martina Hendry Co-opted as Trustee from 16.10.2023 Gareth Trehearn Co-opted as Trustee from 15.05.2023 Selwyn Runnett Resigned as Trustee 16.05.2023 Richard Senior Resigned as Trustee 31.05. 2023 Nick Bentham Green Resigned as Trustee 08.03.2023

The BIBBA Committee welcomes additional support for its activities whether this is as a Helper, a member of a sub-committee or as a Trustee. The process of initially becoming co-opted as a Trustee permits additional volunteers to contribute without incurring the full responsibilities from day one that Trustees are obliged to fulfil. The BIBBA Committee particularly welcomes additional support to assist with publicity, the review of scientific papers, website content creation and courses coordination. Support in other areas is also always welcome.

Governance

The Trustees have ensured that the operation of the Charity complies with the Charity Commission’s requirements. In order that the Trustees carry out their duties to the best of their abilities, it is essential that they keep themselves up-to-date with the latest Charity Commission Guidance, which is published on the Commission’s Website.

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President’s/Chairman’s Report – Roger Patterson

The major change to BIBBA during 2023 has been the transition from a charity to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), a route that many charities have taken in recent times. The members will have seen little visible change, but it has made a positive difference for the Trustees and Officers. The changeover was relatively smooth, if somewhat time-consuming.

BIBBA has grown hugely in the last few years, mainly due to our educational activities, which have been a major reason for the three-fold increase in membership in a short time. I find it rather pleasing that beekeepers regularly compliment us on our material, which helps them to understand and look after their bees more effectively and sustainably. I believe we shall continue to be at the forefront of practical beekeeping education and practices in the UK and it is hoped that other organisations will share the effort and ideas amongst their members.

I believe our original founders would be proud of what we are now achieving. There is an outdated view that BIBBA is primarily focussed on the “black bee”, Amm , but that was never the case. Many of the early members (of the originally named Village Bee Breeders Association) advocated raising queens from the best stock available locally. The term “locally adapted” has become more fashionable recently to describe this approach. It is acknowledged that there were pockets of pure Amm that had less introgression pressure than we have nowadays, and we continually advocate that beekeepers become more aware of the challenge of genetic pollution and develop techniques to keep, select and rear the best bees for their area. We respond positively to any negative views of “black bees”, where they are said to be unproductive, swarmy, aggressive and chase you up the garden path, mainly by those who have never managed them, are confused by dark mongrels or who are financially incentivised to promote other bee strains and hybrids.

To help with the extra workload, there have been five additional Trustees co-opted as Trustees during 2023, all of whom have fitted in well and made major contributions, allowing BIBBA to continue to grow as a champion of locally adapted bees and their improvement .

Roger Patterson

Finance Report from the Treasurer – Alla Neal

Final accounts awaiting external audit

The CIO has no paid employees and relies entirely on the goodwill and unpaid work of Officers, Trustees and volunteer Members. All expenditure is limited to direct expenses to support BIBBA’s duties, strategy and initiative.

The CIO’s income is from three primary sources:

  1. Membership subscriptions

  2. Any surplus funds from education courses

  3. Sales of BIBBA publications.

Further funding is obtained from ad hoc donations, bequests and sponsorships. Thank you to everybody for their support.

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Additional funding is also obtained is via the Gift Aid Scheme. All members who are taxpayers can register their willingness to allow Gift Aid to be collected (at no additional cost to the Member) via the website at bibba.com/giftaid.

Revenue and Expenditure Report – The report shows a net surplus of £13,108 for 2023, in line with expectations.

Financial Statement Report – The report shows a net balance of £141,260 for BIBBA, in line with expectations.

The financial reports will be presented to the AGM for consideration and approval.

Education Report from Lead Trustee - Roger Patterson

The Education sub-committee is responsible for much of the creation and delivery of BIBBA educational material. It was formerly known by several other names, including Conference, Conference and Workshop, Education and Workshops, Education and Training, latterly Education and Events. With the increasing diverse range of events, courses, webinars etc. being arranged by BIBBA, the decision was taken for it to be simply refer to the collective range of activities as “Education”.

The largest single event for 2023 was the Carmarthen BIBBA conference. Despite the short time available for preparations and publicity, this proved to be a major success, with two streams, “Early Years” and “Later Years”, each intended to reflect beekeeping, not beekeepers.

Planning is in progress for summer 2024 with several Practical Bee Improvement, CaSCA and Train the Trainers courses around the country. A range of winter 2024/25 courses for CaSCA, “Early Years” and “Sustainability: Bees and Queens for Everyone” are also being scheduled. The first two pilot courses for “Early Years” education were delivered and very well received by the attendees. All courses benefited from book sales and new member recruitment.

Roger Patterson

CaSCA (Commercial and Semi Commercial Apiarists) Report from Lead

Trustee - Roger Patterson

This is a newly-formed special interest group within BIBBA for all members who sell honey, bees and/or hive products on a regular basis. Emphasis is placed on bees and queens being sold locally, so buyers obtain bees that should suit their environment. This initiative should also reduce the numbers of nucs brought from national suppliers where these may not be suited to local conditions and/or are often headed by imported queens or their recent offspring. CaSCA is still in the formation process and has held two sub-committee meetings to date. To help formally launch the concept, four courses were recently delivered by the Education sub-committee. These courses also attracted around 30 new members to BIBBA and were very well received by the attendees.

Roger Patterson

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Publications Report from Lead Trustee - Roger Patterson

Our books are steady sellers, giving a regular income stream, outreach and publicity for BIBBA. All the proceeds from the recently published books go directly to BIBBA.

Several of the courses run by BIBBA reference sections of the books and they are a popular purchase at most events. BIBBA books are available at the BIBBA trade stand at various beekeeping events, at most BIBBA courses, via Northern Bee Books, Thorne’s and online via Amazon.

Roger Patterson

Membership Report from Lead Trustee – Nick Mawby

We transferred our membership administration process from a Google Sheet to a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system called SheepCRM, mainly to reduce the manual workload involved following the recent tripling of membership numbers. SheepCRM has automated many tasks but there are still areas that required regular manual input which will hopefully be addressed in the near future.

After the enormous growth in membership during the lockdown, thanks to the webinars, we have seen a slight drop in numbers during 2023. The likely reason for this was our failure to produce BIBBA Monthly (BM) for 9 months having to cancel the planned summer courses due to illness.

Member numbers at 31[st] December 2023:

During 2023, 133 members who did not renew their membership and 124 new members joined.

YouTube - Our YouTube channel remains a popular method of outreach with videos having been viewed by an international audience 125,250 times in 2023 with a total viewing time of over 27,561 hours.

Website – During 2023 the website had 67,166 visitors who visited 423,860 pages.

Nick Mawby

NatBIP (Natrional Bee Improvement Programme) Report from Lead Trustee – Jo Widdicombe

The National Bee Improvement Programme came about as a result of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (Brexit). Much of the phase 1 work has been completed and phase 2 is about to commence in 2024 to make domestically-raised bees more widely available.

There are challenges; the large-scale support and participation of individual beekeepers and beekeeping organisations remains to be achieved. The biggest obstacle to sustainable bee improvement remains the use of imported subspecies and their offspring. The current interest in ‘native’ and ‘local’ bees bodes well for the future of NatBIP but the demand for imported queens, particularly from some commercial beekeepers, remains high.

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Jo Widdicombe

Groups Report from the Lead Trustee – Brian Holdcroft

The benefits of working in a group continue to be promoted in line with BIBBA’s objects as set out in the Constitution and all subsequent enquiries followed up.

Plans to have a Full Groups review in 2024 are being considered.

There are currently 37 Groups registered with BIBBA.

Moving forward there is a requirement to establish more local Groups forming a strong foundation for any future plans.

The natural alignment between BIBBA’s NatBIP programme and Groups has been recognised and it’s hoped that this development will grow naturally as the NatBIP programme unfolds.

Brian Holdcroft

Special Apiary Projects Report from Lead Trustee – Brian Holdcroft

The Special Apiary Project continues to make steady progress with Eric Marshall stating that “their learning focus in 2024 must be optimising the mating and then the moving on of mated queens”.

Their current stock comprises 20 colonies and around 10 queens that have been overwintered in small nucs. These numbers take into account losses that were encountered due to wasps. A floor with an adapted entrance arrangement has been fitted to all the hives in an attempt to answer the problem.

An incubator built by team member Chris Barrett has proved to be a useful asset. This also provides temperature and humidity data.

With the continuing aim to secure a geographical area for native bees the Group have a plan to run the Sandringham apiary predominantly as a mating site this season; relying on drone flooding to get the required mating results.

Effort was also put into promoting the project with a Stand at the Sandringham Flower Show in July 2023 attracting much interest. This was supported by the attendance of BIBBA Trustees Terry Hitchman and Brian Holdcroft.

Expressions of interest in the project were also received via the BIBBA website and Eric Marshall would like to encourage BIBBA members local to the project to get involved.

Brian Holdcroft

Signed on behalf of the trustees

Roger Patterson

12[th] March 2024

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ACCOUNTANTS’ REPORT TO THE MEMBERS ON THE UNAUDITED FINANCIAL INFORMATION OF BEE IMPROVEMENT AND BEE BREEDERS ASSOCIATION

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2023

The charity’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is also not required under section 145(1) of the 2011 Act.

In accordance with our engagement letter, we have prepared for your approval the financial information of Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association for the year ended 31 December 2023 which comprises of Receipts and Payments Account and the Balance Sheet from the entity’s accounting records and from information and explanations you have given us.

This report is made solely to you, in accordance with the terms of our engagement letter. Our work has been undertaken solely to prepare for your approval the financial information of Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association and state those matters that we have agreed to state to you in this report. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the members of the association for our work for this report.

You have approved the financial information for the year ended 31 December 2023 and have acknowledged your responsibility for it, for the appropriateness of the financial reporting framework adopted and for providing all information and explanations necessary for its compilation.

We have not verified the accuracy or completeness of the accounting records or information and explanations you have given to us and we do not, therefore, express any opinion on the financial information.

awaiting external audit

Date: ____

Azets, Ruthlyn House, 90 Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 2SP

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RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2023

INCOME
Subscriptions
Gift aid
Publication & videos Income
Interest received
Donations
Conference Income
Breeding groups
EXPENDITURE
Membership admin expenses
Committee meeting expenses
Insurance
Trade stand expenses
Bank charges
Website costs
Publications expenses
Training & education expenses
Subscriptions
Projects
Conferences
Advertising
Paypal, GoCardless/Stripe fees
Accountancy fees
Book sale expenses
Speakers
Misc
Donations
Depreciation
SURPLUS FOR THE YEAR		 2023
19,189
3,190
3,404
2,358
330
11,445
-
39.916
5,044
-
488
3,619
60
2,862
746
787
175
463
10,476
-
374
360
2
60
-
800
26,317
491
13,108		 2022
£
£
19,980
3,139
6,402
1,226
923
5,855
-
37,525
6,491
59
404
4,002
81
290
2,801
3,083
120
2,694
-
-
767
432
-
457
8
-
21,689
503
15,333		 2022
£
£
19,980
3,139
6,402
1,226
923
5,855
-
37,525
6,491
59
404
4,002
81
290
2,801
3,083
120
2,694
-
-
767
432
-
457
8
-
21,689
503
15,333
37,525
21,689
503
15,333

8

BALANCE SHEET

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2023

FIXED ASSETS
INTANGIBLE ASSET
CURRENT ASSETS
CAF Gold account
CAF Cash account
Santander account
Lloyds
Redwood 35 account
Stripe
Petty Cash
Paypal account
NET CURRENT ASSET
NET ASSET
FINANCED BY:
CAPITAL ACCOUNT
Balance brought forward
Surplus for the year
Notes:
Stock held as at 31 December
Liabilities:
Accountancy fee
Debtors:		 2023
2,276
650
£
£
4,847
1,000
4,542
41,561
86,126
146
112
-
138,334
112,819
141,260
128,152
13,108
141,260
846
(360)
-		 2022
1,398
-
£
£
37,714
1,000
3,498
-
84,425
87
30
-
126,754
94,458
128,152
112,819
15,333
128,152
590
(360)
-		 2022
1,398
-
£
£
37,714
1,000
3,498
-
84,425
87
30
-
126,754
94,458
128,152
112,819
15,333
128,152
590
(360)
-
128,152
112,819
15,333
128,152

We approve the accounts set out on pages 8 to 9. We acknowledge our responsibility for the accounts, including the appropriateness of the accounting basis in the accordance with the Charities Act 2011. We have provided Azets with all information and explanations necessary for their compilations. On behalf of the board of trustees

Mrs Alla Neal, ACMA Honorary Treasurer

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