National Honey Show
Thursday 24th to Saturday 26th October 2024
This was our eleventh visit to the National Honey Show, held this year at Sandown Park Racecourse in Esher in Surrey, which is a regular part of our microscopy outreach programme. At the AGM on the first evening, we were given another certificate for our continuing support of the Show.
Quekett members Joan Bingley, Pam Hamer, Pam Hunter, Martin Parnham and Alan Wood manned the Club’s stand in the Trade Hall, which is adjacent to the area where all of the entries for the Show are displayed. We had a good selection of specimens, microscopes and leaflets on the stand (the leaflets are available as free PDFs on our Downloads page). We also had a laptop computer with rolling PowerPoint presentations.
Quekett stand
Pam Hamer and Pam Hunter
Martin Parnham and Pam Hunter
Alan brought his Olympus SZ4045 stereomicroscope, which provides a continuous range of magnification from 6.7× to 40× when used with 10× eyepieces. For illumination, he used an LED ringlight with variable intensity. Alan brought set specimens of a honeybee and a wasp (Vespula germanica), and prepared slides of honeybee parts and pollen.
PowerPoint presentation and stereomicroscope
Alan also brought his laptop computer to show PowerPoint presentations of slides and photomicrographs taken by Quekett members, and to give demonstrations of image stacking using Zerene Stacker.
Slide show: Honeybee anatomy, parasites and pollen
Click the arrows to move through the slides. Click the symbol at bottom right for a larger version.
Pam Hamer brought a modern Brunel MX1 stereomicroscope that provides magnifications of 10× and 30× when used with 10× eyepieces. She also brought an old Lomo С11 compound microscope for looking at slides; used microscopes like this can be found at reasonable prices. The MX1 does not have built-in illumination, so Pam used a flexible Ikea Jansjö USB LED lamp connected to a powerbank. The Lomo’s tungsten-halogen illuminator had been replaced by an LED illuminator made by Graham Matthews, with half of a table-tennis ball as a diffuser. Pam also brought a Brunel set of slides of honeybee parts, and lots of slides of pollen, including some made by Norman Chapman.
Small compound and stereo microscopes
Martin brought a Tomlov digital microscope with a built-in screen. It can be powered by built-in rechargeable batteries that last for about two hours, or it can keep going all day using a mains supply with a USB charger.
Tomlov digital microscope
Pam Hunter brought some dead bees from her hives, good specimens for viewing under the digital microscope.
Honeybee and German wasp
Slides of honeybee parts
We had a reasonable number of visitors and we had some interesting conversations, often explaining the pros and cons of compound microscopes (high magnification, good for looking at slides, but small working distance), stereo microscopes (large working distance, good for dissecting honeybees, but low magnification) and digital microscopes. Several people asked about taking photographs through a microscope, and we explained that it can be done with a smartphone, a C-mount camera, an eyepiece camera, a point-and-shoot camera with a small zoom range, a mirrorless camera or a digital SLR.
Honey Show
The Show was in the same area as the Trade Hall, but cordoned off until Thursday afternoon while the judging was taking place.
There were thousands of jars of honey from large and small producers, all using the same style of jar.
Jars of honey for judging
Honey labels for judging
There were hundreds of bottles of mead (an alcoholic drink made from honey, yeast and water), displayed so that their colour could be assessed.
Bottles of mead for judging
There were lots of candles and other fairly simple items made of beeswax, but there were also some amazing flowers made of beeswax.
Coloured beeswax candles
Beeswax flowers
Cakes made with honey
Shop window display
The categories also include items of more interest to Quekett members: slides and photographs.
Slide competition
Photography competition
Trade Hall
In addition to the Quekett stand, there were lots of stands in the Trade Hall where members of the public could buy almost anything a beekeeper could desire (except a microscope), browse books on bees, find out about associations to join, learn about beekeeping in developing countries and learn about pests and diseases of bees.
The National Bee Unit is part of the Animal & Plant Health Agency, which works to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the environment and the economy. They are involved in the management and control of bee pests and diseases, along with training and dissemination of information to beekeepers. At the Show they were offering advice on problems including the Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), European foulbrood, and Varroa mites. To detect Asian hornets, they showed a bait station with a camera above; it uses AI to recognise an Asian hornet and send an alert to a mobile phone.
National Bee Unit
Bee Craft not only publish BeeCraft Magazine, they also publish books, including “Practical Microscopy for Beekeepers” by Quekett member Bob Maurer.
BeeCraft
Bees for Development is a charity that makes life better with bees. They promote sustainable beekeeping to combat poverty, build resilient livelihoods and benefit biodiversity.
Bees for Development
The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) represent the interests of beekeeping associations at government level, and facilitates a nationwide educational structure supported by a common examination process.
British Beekeepers Association
Claire Murthy is an artist who paints, illustrates and writes about the wildlife and pets that live in and around the garden, countryside and woods. Bees feature in several of her works. She showed lots of her paintings, and promoted her latest book, Izzie Lizzie Busy Bee (with text by Val Rhenius).
Paintings by Claire Murthy
Grans on the Make raise money for charity through their obsession with knitting and crochet, and they showed lots of bee-related items that they have made. Patterns for crochet bees and other items are available on their Make a Beeline website.
Grans on the Make
Meadow In My Garden sells a range of award-winning flower meadow seed products designed to foster a wildlife-friendly environment, and gives talks and seminars for horticultural clubs, beekeepers groups, garden shows, festivals, green events, civic societies, colleges and schools.
Meadow In My Garden
Northern Bee Books were selling an amazing number of new books on honeybees, and a good selection of used books.
Northern Bee Books
Plantlife is an international conservation membership charity working to secure a world rich in wild plants and fungi.
Plantlife
The Woodland Trust is a charity that plants woods and trees, restores damaged ancient woodlands, saves woods and trees from destruction, and cares for over 1000 woods. They work with farmers, landowners and local communities to create bigger, better, more resilient landscapes across the U.K. for people and wildlife.
Woodland Trust
There were also stands selling beehives, protective clothing, jar fillers and probably everything else that a beekeeper could want (except a microscope).
Workshops
The Show included workshops on a wide range of topics, including two on microscopy by Sean Stephenson (Microscopy: Disease Testing and Abdominal Dissection, Microscopy for beginners: Bee Anatomy Slides), one by Marin Anastasov (Honey bee anatomy) and two by Chris Park (Skep making).
Skep-making workshop
The next National Honey Show will be held at Sandown Park Racecourse from Thursday 23rd to Saturday 25th October 2025, and we are planning to be there again.
Report and photographs by Alan Wood