It’s Showtime!
That’s village shows, of course, and the season started on 08 July with the Shutford Village show.
Shutford is a small village event with no produce competitions, so no honey classes to enter, for example. ( Well I say no competitions but the Shipston Beekeepers stand was visited by one chap who was quite proud of the fact that his dog got 2nd place in the ‘waggiest tail’ competition.)
Shipston Beekeepers attend a number of these village shows during the summer as it helps us achieve our charitable purposes of promoting beekeeping and educating the public about bees. It’s also, of course, an opportunity to sell products from the hive so that the Branch, and individual members, can get some return on their investment in time and effort keeping bees.
Shutford provided a gazebo for the stand which was useful as it saved us getting ours out (and wet!), and a table. We do have our own tables and chairs and the first task is to get everything out and to start setting up the tables and displays.
Setting up – and in the rain. But with a bit of effort it comes together – Margery Blower, Christine Paxford and
Mike Clarke
One of the best ways to get the public interested in bees and beekeeping is the observation hive, provided by David Blower MB. Children absolutely love trying to spot the queen (as do a fair few adults) and we have ‘I found the queen stickers’ to give to children who spot the queen – or get the general area; we like to be generous with the stickers…
Sales were slow but mid-afternoon the sun did come out and numbers picked up. Sales were not spectacular but steady, we had some interest in beekeeping and quite a few leaflets were taken by members of the public.
And at the end of the show, before packing everything up, David Blower thought some of the helpers on the day should also be, ahem, hydrated.
From Left to right:
Dave Kelleher (Shipston Secretary), Gary Thomas (Treasurer and Membership Secretary), David Blower MB (Training and Training Apiary Manager) and Mike Clarke (Training Apiary Groundsman and Wednesday Tutor). Margery Blower is behind the camera!
Shipston ‘2nd Monday’ meeting 10th July – ‘Bees in the garden’
For July’s monthly meeting one of our longstanding members, Chris Paxford, gave us a talk on ‘Bees in the garden’. Chris has held many positions on the Shipston Committee, has mentored many new beekeepers and gives one of the talks on our Introduction to Beekeeping course. He knows his bees!
Now we’re beekeepers so we know all about the bees and the flowers, don’t we? Well, no matter what we thought we knew I think it’s fair to say we all learned a lot as Chris Paxford took us on a fascinating journey through the relationship between bees and flowering plants.
By ‘bees’, Chris of course meant all the 270 (plus or minus, as Chris discussed!) species of bee that can be found in the UK. For example we discovered that bumble bees are bred and moved in large numbers in hives to pollinate strawberries as they are particularly efficient pollinators of soft fruit crops.
Chris also discussed the use of honey bees to pollinate the vast groves of almonds, oranges and avocados in California – and the impact on the bees being moved from one mono-culture to another.
We had the expected quiz – can you recognise these spring, summer and autumn flowers – and I’m pretty sure that between us we got them all right. This led on to an interesting discussion around ‘wild flower’ meadows, the pros and cons of ‘no mow May’, and how the seed packs for wild meadows often contain annuals that flower and look good that year but of course don’t reappear the next year. Indeed it seems that wild flower meadows are quite difficult to sustain.
A thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all. We were delighted to see new, and some of our most long-standing, members. We thank Chris for his excellent talk and look forward to having more fascinating talks as we move in to the winter schedule.
Gary Thomas