The Bee Farmers’ Association
The Bee Farmers Association Limited (Bee Farmers’ Association or BFA) is the membership organisation for professional beekeepers in the United Kingdom; it also publishes Bee Farmer magazine, available on general public subscription.
The Bee Farmers’ Association takes your privacy seriously and this privacy notice sets out how we use your personal information, who we share it with, how we keep it secure and your rights as a data subject.
What We Need from You
If you do not provide us with all of the personal information that we need, this may affect our ability to offer you our products, services and/or benefits of membership.
a) Members
The Bee Farmers’ Association holds the following information on all members:
- contact details – name, job title, landline/mobile telephone numbers and email address
(also for additional contacts) - business details – trading name, address, website address (if applicable)
- beekeeping details – number of colonies.
Additionally, members are allocated a membership number.
The Bee Farmers’ Association may also hold:
- banking and transaction details
- information relevant to event bookings (eg, next of kin, dietary requirements, details of health conditions)
- information gathered via surveys
- photographs/videos/audio recordings in which the individual is a subject.
Membership Applications:
If you are applying for membership, we will ask you to provide a general description of your business activities and two pieces of documentary evidence in support of your application. Current members may also provide further information relevant to your application. This information is permanently deleted once an application has been assessed.
b) Magazine Subscribers
When you subscribe to Bee Farmer magazine, we will ask you for the following personal information:
- contact details – name, address, landline/mobile telephone numbers and email address
- business details – trading name, website address (if applicable)
- how you heard about Bee Farmer magazine.
Additionally, subscribers are allocated a subscriber number.
Why We Need Your Personal Information – Contractual Purposes
a) Members
We need to collect your personal information so that we can manage your membership. We will use your personal information to:
- process your membership application and/or renewal
- set up your online membership account enabling you to manage your membership details
- provide you with our core services and enable you to access products, services and benefits of membership
- communicate with you about your membership, our products, services and benefits of membership using the email address which you have provided, or by post.
b) Magazine Subscribers
We need to collect your personal information so that we can manage your subscription. We will use your personal information to:
- process your subscription application and/or renewal
- set up your online subscription account enabling you to manage your subscription details
- send you copies of Bee Farmer magazine
- communicate with you about your subscription using the email address which you have provided, or by post.
Why We Need Your Personal Information – Shared Legitimate Interest
We also process your personal information in pursuit of our shared legitimate interests to:
- engage with you on subjects relevant to our industry representative role, including obtaining your views and information through surveys in order to inform activities and to produce and publish industry data
- capture photographs, videos and audio recordings for the purposes of promotion and sharing of information on bee farming, the activities of the Bee Farmers’ Association and of its members
- distribute relevant information/literature to you
- produce a members’ directory (Year Book)
- process orders and payments for products and/or services
- organise and promote activities; manage risk and safety of those activities
- respond to your questions, comments, support needs, complaints or concerns.
Why We Need Your Personal Information – Legal Obligations
We are under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our members for the purposes of complying with our obligations under the Companies Act 2006 and the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bee Farmers’ Association. These include:
- holding general meetings, including issuing notices and details of voting arrangements
- limited liability of members should the company ever be wound up.
Why We Need Your Personal Information – Consent
We sometimes share data collected through surveys with other individuals and organisations for the purpose of research. We will ask for your specific consent if we collect information through surveys which may be shared with others for this purpose.
Other Uses of Your Personal Information
We may ask you if we can process your personal information for other purposes. When we do so, we will provide you with an additional privacy notice explaining how we will use your information for those purposes.
Who We Share Your Personal Information With
The Bee Farmers’ Association produces an annual directory of members (Year Book) which is circulated on a limited basis to all BFA members and corporate partners.
We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities to comply with statutory obligations.
We may also share personal information with professional and legal advisors for the purpose of obtaining advice.
Third Parties with Access to Members’ Personal Data
The Bee Farmers’ Association uses third party suppliers to provide services and products. These suppliers may process personal information on our behalf as ‘processors’ and are required to only process that personal information under agreement and to protect that personal information.
In the event that we share personal information with third parties, we only share such information strictly required for specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure recipients shall only process the disclosed personal information in accordance with those purposes.
In the case of third parties, a data sharing agreement between the Bee Farmers Association and the third party is in place.
- Sage UK and Elavon Merchant Services process members’ and suppliers’ banking and transaction details for invoicing, payments, book keeping and accounting purposes. Online payment details are also processed by Opayo (formerly SagePay) under the Sage UK group.
- Stephens and George distributes Bee Farmer magazine to members and subscribers by post.
- Marsh Commercial and Hiscox hold contact details of members eligible for insurance cover through the Bee Farmers’ Association insurance policy.
- AF Affinity and BJ Sherriff receive contact details of members for the purposes of offering purchasing services and/or to confirm eligibility for members’ product discounts.
- Ford and Toyota receive confirmation of membership for the purpose of confirming eligibility for members’ product discounts.
- Northern Bee Books receives contact details of members in order to distribute The Beekeepers’ Quarterly.
- The National Bee Unit receives contact details of those wishing to participate in the Disease Assurance Scheme for Honeybees (DASH).
- Trainers and event organisers receive contact details of participants.
Website and Email
- Digital Nachos Ltd provides and maintains our website, member database, IT servers and email accounts.
What is a Cookie?
Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device.
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences and generally to improve the user experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests. The cookies used on this website have been categorised based on the categories found in the ICC UK Cookie guide.
Category 1: Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies services you have asked for cannot be provided.
Category 2: Performance Cookies
These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.
By using this website, you agree that we can place these type of cookies on your device.
Category 3: Functionality Cookies
These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance, a website may be able to provide you with local weather reports or traffic news by storing in a cookie the region in which you are currently located. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonomised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
By using this website, you agree that we can place these type of cookies on your device.
Category 4: Targeting Cookies or Advertising Cookies
These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisations.
A list of all the cookies used on this website by category is set out below.
| Cookie Name | Cookie Category | Description | Duration |
| _ga | 2 | To monitor how users interact with the website and to monitor website performance. | |
| PHPSESSID | 1 | To identify your unique session on the website | session |
| civicAllowCookies | 1 | To remember your selection for allowing further cookies. | |
| _gid | 2 | To monitor how users interact with the website and to monitor website performance. | |
| _gat | 2 | To monitor how users interact with the website and to monitor website performance. | |
| SESS | 1 | To ensure that you are recognised when you move from page to page within the site and that any information you have entered is remembered. | session |
Links to Other Websites
Our website may contain links to other websites. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy policy applicable to the website in question.
Social Media
The Bee Farmers’ Association operates the following social media accounts:
- Facebook – Bee Farmers Association (public)
- Facebook – Bee Farmers Association Discussion Group (closed group for members only)
- YouTube – Bee Farmers Association
- Twitter – BeeFarmersoftheUK
Use of the Bee Farmers’ Association website and social media by individuals is outside our control and is subject to the privacy policy and terms and conditions of the provider.
Sharing with Others
If we want to share your personal data with anyone else for any other purpose, we will ask your permission first. You will be able to refuse to agree and we will respect your decision.
How We Protect Your Personal Information
Access to your data is restricted to those requiring it for the purposes set out above. Only necessary information is collected. Suitable controls and security are in place to protect your data.
How Long We Keep Your Personal Information
a) Incomplete Membership/Subscription Applications
We will delete any partially complete applications from our database after three months. A new application will be required.
b) Lapsed Members/Subscribers
We only keep your personal information for as long as necessary to provide you with our products, services and benefits. Unless you ask us not to, we will review and delete your personal information after one year, unless the information is required for statutory purposes.
Information which has been published in Year Books or other Bee Farmers’ Association publications will be retained indefinitely in this format for historic reference/research purposes.
Any information which has been provided as part of a survey will be retained indefinitely for historic reference/research purposes.
Rights of the Data Subject
You have the right to:
- be informed – this privacy policy provides that information
- access your data – members and subscribers have direct access to their personal information in their secure personalised accounts which can be accessed via the BFA website. For other data subjects, or to access any additional information not contained in the member/subscriber database, requests should be made in writing. Information will be provided within one month of the request. There is not normally a charge for this service
- amend or correct data – members and subscribers can access and correct/update their own membership records online at any time. For other changes, please contact us. Where information has been shared with other parties or published, this inaccuracy will be communicated to the organisation or corrected in the next update
- request that we delete your personal information – though this may affect our ability to provide you with our products, services and/or benefits of membership
- restrict processing – if you do not want your data used for certain purposes then please contact us.
The Bee Farmers’ Association does not process data for automated decision making or profiling.
International
The Bee Farmers’ Association operates in more than one European Union (EU) member state. The lead data protection supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office, United Kingdom (ICO UK).
Security/Data Breaches
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. Any breaches will be detected, reported and investigated in line with ICO UK guidelines.
If you are dissatisfied, you can also contact us in writing. You also have a right to raise a complaint with the ICO UK at www.ico.org.uk
Data Protection Contacts:
Membership Services:
Alex Ellis, Bee Farmers’ Association, The Holding, Eglwys Cross, Whitchurch SY13 2JP
Finance Director and Company Secretary:
John Heard, Bee Farmers’ Association, 36 The Green, Long Whatton, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5DB.
The Bee Farmers’ Association may review and update this policy from time to time. This policy is effective from 25 May 2018. Updated 7 December 2018, 12 June 2019, 11 October 2019, 16 January 2020, 23 June 2020, 22 April 2021, 26 April 2023.
The Bee Farmers Association Limited is a company registered in England. Registered number: 08131311.
Registered address: 36 The Green, Long Whatton, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE12 5DB.