BEE CONVENTIONS

My day started at 6am. The drive to Harper Adams University was awful and stressful. I eventually arrived at 8.15 am, just enough time for breakfast and registering for the Bee Convention. No workshops were available because of the demand and ‘selfishness’ of people. (So a BBKA steward told me) In only Eleven minutes several months ago all the online workshop tickets, accommodation had been sold. Is this victim of success, or poor management on behalf of the BBKA?

Having looked at the detailed programme the previous week I’d decided that I was only interested in 4 workshops. Swarm control, Making Cosmetics, Queen Selection for breeding and one other. Sadly I didn’t manage to get to any workshops, but the lectures I attended and the Historical Film’s I watched as well as networking and chatting about Bees to all and sundry soon filled my time and it was 3pm before I knew it.

For those of us with busy lives like me, I’d known about this conference for months, but couldn’t commit to attending this 3 day event until the last minute due to other responsibilities. Kath Kindred and Viki Cuthberson were my initial points of contact on reception and they were both very helpful. Kath told me about Blue Sugar, a rationing system that was used by the government in the 1940’s, during the World War 2. Apparently blue sugar was especially distributed to bee keepers who claimed their bee’s would die without feed, the honey produced was obviously a different colour.

The Honey Tasting bar that ran from 11am until 5pm offered a great selection of honey from UK wide beekeepers. My favourites were number 2 and 8. I was told to ‘twiddle’ my tasting spatula in the honey. A term I’d never come across. So I followed the instruction given to me by the judges, I’d never actually tried such a variety of honeys before and after 8 samples was buzzing with the sugar overload. One was a sixteen year old Sweet Chesnut honey from Wrexham, the other last year’s Borage Honey from Essex. Borage in case you don’t know is a plant.

I met many lovely people and over coffee I met Guy, a Zimbabwean who lived on the Isle of White, where he kept his bees’ and he recounted tales about African Safaris. He went to the 'exclusive' official BBKA dinner that evening.

My day ended in a fantastic restaurant off site chatting with 3 fellow beekeepers about life. I finally got to bed at 10pm, it had proved to be a very interesting day.

Everyone I spoke to appeared to have lost colonies this year.