The 2007 Annual Honey Show
Once again the organisers arranged one of the best days of the summer for the 2007 HBKA Honey Show, held as usual in the Hinchingbrooke Country Park conference centre in mid September. In a break with tradition the Show was split between Saturday and Sunday, normally only on Sundays, which allowed for judging of exhibits to be conducted fairly calmly and without hassle on the Saturday. This then allowed visitors to be able to circumnavigate the exhibits and stalls throughout the Sunday – 1200 hours onwards - without having to negotiate around the judge and his entourage. We have judged this particular Show to be amongst the best ever. Not only were all stalls in the Conference Centre very attractive to the many visitors, but the outside shows and stalls also gained attention from casual passers-by. Indeed the outside attractions probably helped get curious people inside. We’re told the flower stalls were a particular fancy, but most of the cake stalls seemed to have few stores left by the end of the day. And the honey sales were well up on previous years despite the poor harvest, or perhaps because of this. The message about shortage of 2007 English honey seems to have got around. The skep maker attracted a lot of interest just by the main entrance to the hall.
From time to time a big furry bee, or was it a bear, seemed to act the part of the Pied Piper, and removed a batch of children to goodness knows where. I’m not too sure if their parents ever saw them again.
It would seem that the HBKA funds benefited quite substantially from the various paying inputs.
This format will probably be repeated for future years.
