December 2013: Dipped bees wax candles

Probably the most eagerly awaited social event of the year!  Our evening of mince pies, mead and making dipped wax candles.

We started with some careful preparation, breaking up the wax reclaimed from our solar extractor, warming it in a bain marie to melting point then carefully pouring it into our expertly designed wax pot ( two baked bean tins welded together and set into two paint tins)...

Very soon our wax pot was ready for us to dip our pre-prepared wicks...

Then the real fun began.  A self organised group of bee keepers in a constant procession dipping wicks that gradually built up to be candles...

There was a rack for those who needed to pause and leave their candles to rest for a moment whilst they sampled a little mead and a mince pie or roll out a flaw between two sheets of glass...

There were no prizes for the biggest candle of the night...

Everyone had a prize candle to take home...

November 2013: Gadgets and Gizmos revisited

Back by popular demand! An evening of our favourite gadgets and gizmos to help with different bee keeping tasks...

Some were specially bought like this prongy pokey thingy that is perfectly shaped for cleaning dregs of foundation from frame grooves...

Some were carefully considered adaptations, like this crown board with adapted sides that turn it into an eke one way up and a crown board the other way up!

There was some interesting metal work on show....a frame holder for uncapping and a stirrer for creaming...

But possibly the star of the show ( judging from the way it got passed around the table and examined by the wood working experts) was probably this honey bucket tipper upper...

We were assured it was normally wedged up (to help the last dregs of honey out of the bucket) by some wooden door wedges rather than fingers...but it may be adapted with a large old fashioned bed spring for next year.

Can't wait to see that!

October 2013: This years honey show

We are really quite lucky in Epsom to have the National Honey show at St. George's College, Weybridge each year.  Whilst its not quite on our door step the 20 minute drive makes it very accessible, and an easy day trip out.

What an amazing amount of honey was there on show!

And an amazing amount of silverware...

Waiting for those who are brave enough to submit to the scrutiny of the honey judges...

Last year Epsom entered 6 jars of honey into the class for six matching jars from one apiary and won!

With a much bigger harvest this year we were hopeful of similar success.  Sadly it wasn't to be - no place at all.

Still we can stand back and admire all the glorious honeys...light, dark, creamed an set...

 

 




Not to mention the interesting displays of honey related products...

 

and the honey and bee keeping related exhibits...

And beeswax...

And now full of inspiration we're off to make a plan for next year.....

September: Honey tasting

What a lot we've got!

32 honeys to taste in one evening- yum yum

They were all carefully organised and anonymously labelled by our excellent administrator and laid out ready to be tasted and scored.  We kept it simple this year 5 for delicious and 1 for disgusting...

Let the tasting commence...

It was great fun!  as the ooohs.... and aaahhhs.... and yummmms rose from the table punctuated by the occasional "aaagh that's rank" and as we all got slightly giddy on the sugar rush our administrator and score keeper kept us fairly under control...

Finally we were ready to reveal the scores...

Oh no!!!! there were three with IDENTICAL scores.  Time for a final adjudication to find the winner...

OH no!!! our Jury couldn't agree - we still had two honey's scoring the same.  Time for a new team of adjudicators....

What???? still no winner ??? Is anyone brave enough to step forward and declare one honey the best and the other the runner up?

And we have a winner!  Manley family honey for a second year running - How do they do it?

August: Work, work, busy, busy

There was a lot to do in the apiary today.  But working mostly in two's and three's we soldiered on and got through the list of jobs to do...

The last of the honey supers needed to come off for extracting....

We shook off all the bees and had a good look or signs of disease on all the brood frames.... clearly this queen is stupendously picky and wont lay in the cells touching supporting wire "W" in the frame...

We found an open queen cell and a queen with really hairy shoulders, which made us wonder if she was a newly hatching princes...

and we put patties of apiguard on all the hives to treat for varroa...

Apiguard doesn't smell very nice so quite a few bees stayed out playing with us for a while...

 

 

I guess they thought they ought to supervise the workers!