THE NATIONAL HONEY SHOW
Driving in the UK was no longer enjoyable. After a three and half hour drive I arrived at Sand down Race Course from the Midlands and pranged my car on a wooden bollard in the card park that I didn’t see, due to ‘road fatigue’. Then when I went in for a coffee, they were cashless. I tend to walk away from Cashless vendors, so I did. What will everyone do when the power runs out? ( Have you thought about that? ) At least I was surrounded by friendly beekeepers.
Esher, Yeah, I’d never heard of it either, was a world away from the Midlands. Millionaires, Mansions, Football stars, Stock brokers, WAGS and Sandown Racecourse. To me the 95th Honey Show everything Middle Class that Beekeeping really was. Its fair to say I was here to Network and have a good time. Middle Class beekeepers are so reserved and they seemed so old school and disconnected from the ‘real new world’ we all now lived in.
For me the highlight was a little attended stall called Clownbee3D run by an Estonian who had made the UK his home. Id never a manual foundation making press before, and it was very impressive. In a world short of patience, this is exactly the sort of machine that could offer lessons in concentration and patience to people. Both seemingly in short supply.
I wandered around the exhibition hall learning about honey spinners and foundation making presses, that look like old fashioned mangles. ( See picture above ) The manual press for me was the find of the show. I’d never seen one before, and was very impressed with it. For some people it would make an excellent lesson addition to frame making. ( What bee’s live, breed and make their honey on inside a hive)
Every time I looked around the exhibition I discovered something else. I saw some fantastic bee entries, and some educational work by a few dedicated bright students. To enter honey into a honey show was a complex affair. Lots of rules, standards, stipulations and the National Honey show had over 2900 entrants this year. Looking around at hundreds of honey jars, I wondered how on earth you could judge two seemingly identical jars of honey. Winning awards was great for marketing, but the world was full of it. Marketing to which more effort was made than anything else on planet earth.
On Friday morning I attended an amazing presentation by Kate Graydona second year PHD student from Bristol University who produced a fantastic and interesting presentation on Honey Bee behaviour sponsored by Bee Craft. Bruno Gomez was the crazy bee sucking man who helped her with her research and British Bee Keeping Association funded her research .
It was midday and my ‘jolly’ was over. I’d done my networking, looked at the prices of equipment and stock, and made two new bee keeping friends. It was time to drive back through Storm Boelo, not a pleasant experience. The roads were gridlocked, why did people drive and how could they afford diesel at £2.22 a litre?
I hope you enjoyed this article.
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