BEETRADEX 2020

That was an expensive day! I spent 6 hours behind the steering wheel covering 360 miles which will have cost me about £36 in fuel and spent 4 hours at Beetradex at Stoneleigh.  I had to pay £7 and be branded on my hand to enter the vast trade room with rows and rows of traders’ stalls.

I made my way anti-clockwise around the perimeter and then up and down the centre aisles seeing what bargains there were and trying to remember which items that I might buy were least expensive.  I didn’t do very well.  The first thing I bought was a bee brush, having lost mine, for £4 but just before leaving I saw another, almost identical, on another stall for 50p.

I got a reasonable deal from National Bee Supplies, getting 50 second class brood frames for £30.  I don’t need nearly that many at the moment but will get through them as the years go by.

The most expensive thing I bought was a gas heated oxalic evaporator, the bits of which added up to £53!  It works on the same principle as my home made copper pipe but is much smaller and easier to use so I hope it’s worth the money.

There seemed to be fewer people there than last year, possibly because of corona virus fear. I met a chap I haven’t set eyes on for years and we elbowed each other.  There were quite a few people I know, through Gormanston and elsewhere, but nobody else from distant Dorset.  I ate my bread and cheese lunch in the cafe with friends from Cambridge who were feasting on pie and chips.

As always, I browsed the books on the shelves of Northern Bee Books.  There are several that I don’t have already.  Jerry is down to the last 3 copies of Bees vs People so I must remember to let him have some more when next I see him, probably at the Spring Convention.  He has sold out of Getting the Best from Your Bees, which I co-authored with Dave MacFawn of North Carolina, and wants to get some more but has to get them from the publisher, Outskirts Press in America, which adds to the hassle and cost.

There were some talks but the programme was unclear and they may have been shuffled. After lunch I arrived halfway through a talk by Filipe Salby from Africa about the virtues of having additional upper entrances to hives.  This was followed by Ken Basterfield giving a talk, illustrated by a magic lantern, on the subject of processing beeswax.  He seems to be very fond of the Bercow boiler although he’s now retired.

The programme said the event was going on until 4.30 but when I left at 3.45 stall holders were already packing up and my car was the only one left in the previously full car park.

It’s a long way to travel for just a few hours there.  I do wish the BBKA would bring their Spring Convention back to Stoneleigh as it’s easier to get to for we southerners and you don’t have to drive so far in one day.  The accommodation used to be adequate, although not as good as at Harper Adams, however not much accommodation is now available at Harper Adams so we have to find B & B elsewhere, which is not nearly as convenient.