Welcome to the November episode of our beekeeping podcast. What did we get up to at the National Honey Show?

At the end of the UK, beekeeping season is marked by the World’s oldest and largest honey show. Starting in 1923 the Honey Show is in its 88th year, interrupted only by the odd pesky World War and occasional fire. 

I’ve only been going for the last five years but it’s now firmly established as my end of season ritual. Tracey, myself and some of our beekeeping friends meet up at the show, buy some stuff, watch some talks and visit the Bear Pub for a few beers.

If you want to know more about the National Honey Show why not check out our interview with its Chairman and all-round class act Bob Maurer.

The Honey Show show

Every year the Honey Show books world-class speakers from across the beekeeping World and this year the keynote was Dr Ralph Büchler from the Kirchhain Bee Insitute and a key member of the Smart bees project.

Over four lectures Ralph explored the importance of preserving the native strains of the honey bee, what we can learn about wild populations that have developed resistance to varroa, how to select from your own stock and an innovative biotechnical control for varroa you can use in your apiary.

More detail about his technique can be found here –  https://freethebees.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/brood-removal-web.pdf

The National Honey Show videos all these lectures and eventually publishes them for free – http://www.honeyshow.co.uk/lecture-videos.php – whilst you are waiting to see Ralph and the other speakers yourself check out this valuable resource.

Although our show is about the National Honey Show, it’s also about Honey the dog. As you’ll hear in the show Tracey’s dog Honey decided the recording podcast shenanigans wasn’t as important as chasing fox in the garden.

We also have an exciting new podcast section to look forward to.

Enjoy.