London Honey Show

I attended the second London Honey show yesterday. I also attend it last year and again it was held at the Lancaster hotel.

This year it was slightly bigger and a bit more organised. I attend all the lectures which was pretty easy they had 3 though at least one of the original speakers let the organisers down and a substitute was needed.The lectures weren't given in the order stated on the agenda but that didn't really matter.

The first speaker was Frank Minns a gardener from London. He isn't a bee keeper and this was evident. He mentioned various plants that he as a gardener had noted bee’s liked. Some of them were rather exotic. He even mentioned more traditional flowers like daises, and types of roses that are suitable for bees but it was clear that he didn't know which plants were good for pollen and which were good for nectar or flowers that are suitable for both, or he didn't mention it.He did note that bees like white and blue flowers and wasn't aware that bees can't see the red, or that part of the visual spectrum.

It was an interesting talk, and I did learn about some rather large plants that would look good in very elegant gardens and smelt of honey. He was also critical of grasses and mentioned that they aren't beneficial for bees. Frank also mentioned various trees and how they provide food for bees, Lime trees especially.

I would have liked some seasonal information, like planting Willows for pollen in the early months and Chestnuts then Lime trees and then ivy for the winter months, some of the audience clearly wanted this type of information. I talked with a couple of people after the lecture and it was a nice chat.

The second talk was on Bee Keeping for Beginners from author James Dearsley writer of "from A to Bee".

This was also interesting and somewhat glossy.

Although as an author of a bee book you get the feeling he was trying to sell a couple of copies of his book. He did mention a couple of mistakes that he has made. It was obvious that he really enjoys bee keeping and like all bee keepers its changed his life and his life perspective. He mentioned how he is more interested in the plants that the bees collect pollen and nectar from. He is also more aware of bees and watches them to see what they are doing and where they are going and collecting from. He mentioned how most bees are lazy and how they have perfected the waggle dance to tell other bees where decent food can be found. If they can collect food from an easy source they will. He highlighted recent stories the French M&M factory where bees were collecting the coloured sugar and the Incident in the US with maraschino cherry juice.

In hindsight I did enjoy his talk more than I thought, as he was an author I kind of felt he would be plugging his book and at the end he did. I haven’t read his book but he stated that it was about the bee keeping mistakes he has made. It's more of a humorous book rather than a theory one.

However off all the lectures I enjoyed the final one the most it was from Karin Courtman from the London Bee Keepers Association

She mentions how the number of hives in London had gone up, from 1617 in 2009 to 3337 in2012. This was from people registering their hives on BeeBase. She also mentioned facts like the amount of honey being produced in London had gone down per hive and some bee-keepers have to feed bees throughout the year. She also stated that you don’t need to be a bee-keeper to enjoy bees. She mentioned what she enjoys about going into a beehive the sounds and the smells. The way that as a bee-keeper you learn quickly how the bees are feeling. How the smell of the wax, the propolis and the honey is something you enjoy and the feeling you get when you’re in the hive. These are some of the things I enjoy also, you never know what’s going to happen when you enter a hive, or the feeling you get when everything comes together and you have 60,000 bees whizzing around and your know they aren't going to harm you.

She also mentioned mistake she had made and when she was stung some of them were dumb things that I have done, but as a fellow bee keeper they were understandable. She presented it in a way that was simple and made it sound like she was having fun.Although she has been taken to hospital because of the number of sting she received once, while showing a class of new bee-keepers that they shouldn't be afraid of the bees. All the students had bee suits on and she didn't.

The show had lots of other non bee related stalls and exhibitors, like Suzanne Morgan an artist from Wimbledon who attempted to sell some of paintings, and a family selling different types of cakes.

I also liked some of the stalls selling bee products like Gold and Black a company from Dorset that makes bee’s wax candles. The wax comes from Yorkshire and I always thought that established bee keepers especially from the north never gave away the bee’s wax. Bees wax is  far more valuable than the honey.

The Thornes representatives were on hand to sell bee keeping supplies but it was somewhat muted. A couple of stands selling various bee hives I was impressed with a hive made from recycled materials, not sure the bees would be. Also no one from the Omlet organisation as this would have been an ideal market for them, and when I met a chap from Omlet at the spring convention a couple of years ago he was based in the London Kings Cross area.

A couple of charitable organisations were also exhibiting, this included Garden Organic and lucenarium a social enterprise helping marginalised people. The Open university were on hand promoting ispot a website when you can take a picture something in the wild and people help identify it. I upload the picture of the caterpillar I found on Sunday  and its a knot grass Caterpillar. 

The honey tasting completion was also nice, lots of honey on offer and varying colours and textures.