Currently we have five such booklets in print, The Bee way Code, Seasonal Management', Queen Rearing', Living with Varroa', and 'The Selection of Apiary Sites'. There is another in preparation on 'Viruses and Bees'. In our early days, we had three major events each year, the AGM, a public lecture, and a DARG dinner. This is followed in December by a programmed meeting, at which we sort out the following year's forum topics, which projects we will pursue in the coming year, and which events we will attend with the DARG stall. This always goes to Stoneleigh and Seale-Hayne, but has also been seen at other events in some years.
Experimental projects tend to carry on from year to year, so only change slowly.
In the early years we spent a lot of time looking at queen raising in small colonies, and came to the conclusion that this is satisfactory so long as the amount of open brood was small in relation to the number of nurse bees available. We have also looked at induced supersedure, in which queenright colonies are given sealed queen cells whose sides are protected with foil. This year, some of our members will be looking at the relationship between the age of the queen and the amount of drone brood produced. This is just a selection of the problems we have considered. DARG's strength lies in the ideas it stimulates and fosters, as much as in the tangible output of booklets.