Well that has been a very tiring but very satisfying couple of days - the Dorset County Show.
We started with an empty marquee and by Saturday morning we had a full display of honey and other bee products as well as stands of information about bees. All those involved in setting the marquee up are very grateful to all the others who helped - a fantastic team effort.
The first day of the show, Saturday, was the day of the competition and the judge carefully scrutinised each of the submissions. He was assisted by two of our members, Andre and Sarah and they carefully wrote down his advice so that those who did not get first prizes know what they can do to improve next year. All of this was done with a great sense of humour and a very positive approach to encourage more of us to enter next year.
But it was not just about the competition. We had Candle Rolling and as ever this was very well attended. In fact several hundred candles were rolled.
Many of the visitors expressed an interest in learning more about bees and beekeeping. Dorchester and Weymouth Beekeepers will be running a course for beginners in Spring of 2025. As yet we have not decided on the details but there will be a course and whether you want to keep bees or just learn more about bees then this could be of interest. to you.
To register your interest email our secretary, Sally at dwbkasecretary@gmail.com.
We also sold honey for members. I spent Saturday afternoon on honey sales and was fascinated by the problems visitors had deciding which honey to buy. We pointed out to them that they could choose between soft set and runny. Then they might want to choose honey from an apiary near to their home. Many seemed influenced by the colour of the honey and assumed that darker honey was stronger flavoured - which may well be the case.
The other factor that influence the decision was the label. Those labels which were significantly different attracted attention. The picture of the tractor appealed to the younger purchasers whereas the simple dark label - with no pictures of hives - appealed to many.
We also had a stand for Asian Hornet Awareness. This raised a lot of interest and if everyone we spoke to downloads the Asian Hornet Watch App for Android or iPhones then that will be good. I spoke to several people who said they had seen a lot of Asian Hornets in their garden. It turned out these were all people who lived in France or the Channel Islands. It was interesting to talk to people with first hand experience of living in the presence of Asian Hornets.
As ever the Observation Hives created a lot of interest and when explaining how the hive works - as far as we know - they are a superb teaching aid. On the Saturday the bees were not venturing out of the hive due to poor weather. This allowed us to show bees uncapping stores to feed the larvae. On the Sunday they were much more active as soon as the sun came out . This allowed us to point out the "saddlebags" of pollen and most visitors were able to see the "Waggle Dance".
Not all the activity was inside the marquee. Outside we had skep making and a demonstration of a hive inspection. This was on every two hours rain or shine and those who were there thoroughly enjoyed the informative and entertaining demonstration.
On the Sunday we hosted the Butterfly Conservation display and that attracted a lot of interest. Unfortunately after the rain Saturday night and the gloomy weather forecast for Sunday meant that we had fewer visitors than the Saturday.
At the end of the show we had to remove all of our stands and a superb team effort meant that in less than two hours we went from a full display marquee to an empty shell - a great team effort.
It was a tiring weekend - two 12 hour days - but very successful.
