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).

Honey Judging and Entering Honey Contests

Robert Brewer, Welsh honey judge from Young Harris, Georgia

I know I haven't posted in a while. I had to miss the last Metro Beekeeper's meeting because I was leaving town on the day after the meeting and had to pack and get organized. I'm sorry I missed it - Keith Delaplane spoke on the thermodynamics of bees and I know I would have learned something new.

Sometimes, however, being a grandmother trumps being a beekeeper!

I did go to a talk at GBA by Robert Brewer, well-respected Welsh honey judge, on preparing honey for a show while I was at the GBA meeting a couple of weekends ago. I found my notes, so I want to share them with you.

In preparing honey jars for a show, Robert strongly urged that one always use new containers and new lids. Most people take their honey to the show with plastic wrap between the jarred honey and the lid so that no honey gets on the top of the jar. He suggested carrying new lids with you to the show to put on the jars when you remove the plastic wrap.

The first order of business is the cleanliness of the jars. He suggested that denatured alcohol will remove smudges from the jar. He also suggested polishing your jar with nylon or silk. I saw a number of people entering jars in the GBA show who came with special cloth for polishing the jar.

I used knee-high panty hose, but next year I'm going for silk!

After the judge determines if the jar is clean and without smudges, he or she will look at the fill level. On a queen-line jar, the honey should be just high enough in the jar that there is no air line between the honey and the jar lid when viewed from the side of the jar.

He said that honey is judged on clarity and cleanliness. If you see something in the jar or want to clear bubbles from the top of the honey in the jar, Robert said that a silver spoon will for an unknown reason do this better than a stainless steel spoon (who knew?). The judges take a flashlight and really look at the jar, both to see possible smudges on the jar and to pick up anything floating in the honey, so strain your honey very, very well.

For chunk honey (a cut of honey comb sitting in a jar of liquid honey), the comb should fit the length of the jar. As I've written about earlier, the comb needs to go in the jar the way it is in the hive, right side up. Judges prefer that the comb sit on the bottom of the jar.

Although my chunk honey won a blue ribbon in the state show, the judge (Robert Brewer) wrote that he would have preferred to see the chunk on the bottom of the jar. Since the wax wants to float, the only way to accomplish this wish is to somehow stick the honey comb to the jar bottom. Robert said that some people set the wide-mouthed jar in hot water so that when you put the chunk in the jar it melts slightly to the bottom of the jar and sticks there.

"Cut comb" is the comb in the clear plastic 4 inch square box. Robert said that judges look for clean cuts of the comb, no honey drips in the box, and for dry cappings. Bees can cap honey in two ways: wet cappings and dry cappings. The wet cappings look somewhat transparent as if the honey is touching the wax and sort of soaking into it. Dry cappings look white and lovely and the honey is not apparently touching the wax.

Robert also talked about pouring wax blocks (remember my 18 pours??). He noted that pouring a good wax block is particularly hard to do. Wax is affected by air currents and vibrations in the room. He suggested doing what I have done - pour the block and go to bed, leaving the block in a quiet room to cool. He said that some people put the block in the oven to cool with a piece of glass over it to keep the air currents from affecting the block. Even the air conditioner turning on or the vibrations of the refrigerator can cause wave marks on the top of the wax.

I've always liked the wavy surface when the wax cools. This year is the first year that I've learned that wavy surfaces count off, so I bought a pane of glass and have tried to minimize the waves.

While I knew the importance of even, slow cooling and the importance of avoiding the wavy look from the air currents, he also said that the edges of the wax block needed to be smoothed so that they are not sharp. Mine are always sharp so I am going to try what he said next year during my 18 or 19 pours. He said to take the ball of your thumb and rub it on the sharp edge to round it off.

Wax block pouring for judging is one of the hardest things to accomplish. This year my wax block won a red ribbon in the state show, but with all these helpful hints, maybe I can do even better next year.

I'm hoping to try all of Robert's techniques described in his talk "Preparing Honey and Hive Products for Show." There are other good hints about honey show success on the Metro Atlanta Beekeeping Association web site as well.

Honey Contest at GBA

I decided to be brave and enter my honey in the honey contest on the state level at the Georgia Beekeeper's Association annual fall meeting. I learned from my Metro entries and had polished, polished, polished my jars.

I was so excited at the end of the contest to find that I had won:

First place blue ribbon for light honey
First place blue ribbon for chunk honey (comb in a jar of liquid honey)
First place blue ribbon for cut comb honey (square of comb in a box)
Second place red ribbon for my wax block

There were cash prizes so I also won a total of $110!

I also entered my amber honey which didn't place and I forgot to pick up the jars and left them in Rabun County. Even though it didn't win, it was delicious honey, so I hope someone enjoys it!

The wax block wasn't the one I poured 19 times. After the Metro contest, it had some knicks in it and needed to be re-poured. So I re-poured it several times. The last re-pour before I was scheduled to leave for Rabun County cracked as it cooled.

I took all of my wax stuff with me to my mountain house and actually poured the block again on Thursday night before it was due at 9 AM on Friday! The last pour (that won second) wasn't perfect. It had stuck some to the bottom of the mold so the top was marred.

While at GBA, I went to a talk by Robert Brewer, the judge of the honey show and the certified Welsh Honey judge who teaches honey judging at Young Harris (and co-founded the Young Harris Institute). He discussed the wax block and I learned (in addition to what I had learned from Keith Fielder) that the edges of the wax block at the top of the pour need to be smooth. Robert suggested taking your thumb and rubbing the edge to smooth it out. Mine had edges that needed this. He also talked about how important it is to use well filtered wax - perhaps pouring it through silk. I'll be interested to try silk as a filter next year.

The other thing I was surprised by is that Virginia Webb, a beekeeper extraordinaire, won first place for the wax block. Her block was poured into a mold with raised designs. It was a solid block but had raised designs all over it. I had no idea and thought you had to have a solid, smooth block which is what I have been trying for - so here's something for me to learn more about for the future. I took a class from Virginia at the Folk School three years ago and learned so much from her.