Julia Child with Wax and Oil

I had four assignments at the Southeast Organic Beekeepers Conference:

1. To do a talk for the advanced beekeepers on How to Prepare Honey and Wax for Competition.

I enjoyed doing that so much. Most of the audience had never entered a honey contest. I was so grateful that I had gone to a lecture by Robert Brewer in 2008 at the state meeting of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and had heard him talk on the subject.

Most of all I was glad that I have entered honey contests ever since I started beekeeping five years ago. I've learned a lot from every wax pour and from pouring each jar of honey. And I've won a lot of ribbons! So I covered liquid honey, chunk honey, cut comb honey and wax blocks. I learned a lot by organizing what I know into a PowerPoint presentation.

2. To talk to the beginning beekeepers about Honey Harvest from the Bee Hive to the Jar.

Most of them were, as many new beekeepers are, a little overwhelmed by how to get the honey harvested. I of course talked about the simple honey harvest that I do. I used a PowerPoint to show them how to harvest with minimal clean-up, a simple approach to the bees, and honey without extraction. This talk was only about liquid honey. I also showed my movie on harvesting honey via Crush and Strain .

3. To talk and demonstrate how to make lip balm and lotion from the wax from the hive.

I felt a little like Julia Child, essentially cooking in front of everyone. The whole conference was there - advanced and beginners....so about 60 people.



I had a burner to use to melt the ingredients on, but in the end we used the much more effective stove in the kitchen. I showed them how it is helpful to use a chopstick to stir - chopsticks are just great and I use them a lot in various aspects of beekeeping.



Here I am, thanks to my friend from Beemaster, JP, who generously took these pictures. I am using a syringe to squirt the liquid lip balm into tiny lip balm containers. I had lots of help with this project. Brendhan and Eric manned the kitchen stove and cut wax, Janel went out to buy all the ingredients and supplies, and others help cap the containers when I was done.



I also mixed up lotion for everyone, but that takes about 2 1/2 hours to cool so they went on to other activities while the lotion was in the blenders for 2 or more hours. I had brought samples of the lotion bars that I had made at home a couple of nights before, so I used ice trays that I bought at WalMart to make everyone tiny lotion bars as well.



In the end all of the participants went home with a lip balm, a jar of lotion and a lotion bar. Everyone had fun doing this, I think.

4. I was supposed to help judge the honey show.

Dr. Mikhail Kruglyakov, a Robert Brewer trained honey judge, came to judge the show and I was to be his steward. I learned so much. I own a refractometer and didn't know how to use it and he showed me. He also showed me how to examine a jar of honey from start to finish and write notes about it for the entrant. He was a lovely person and very kind and encouraging. We had very few entries into the show but tried to write good comments to help the entrants learn for the next show.

I hope that I can take the Welsh honey judge training at Young Harris in 2011 (if I get Master Beekeeper this year - otherwise I'll be taking the exam again in 2011).