I really didn’t know what to expect when I volunteered to be a steward at Warwickshire County Honey Show and was a little nervous when I turned up at Kings Hill Nursery at 8.45 last Saturday. However, putting on my smart white coat made me feel a bit more confident and official. Soon I and the other stewards were being introduced to the judges. They were very confident and professional ladies who had driven up from Reading. They competently organised us and introduced us to the art of judging. It turned out that our primary task was to accurately record their judgements for each class and to deliver a paper copy to the team, who looked up the names of the winners and printed out the results cards. But whilst doing this, we were able to watch the judges at work and get all sorts of insights into how they came to their decisions.
I was working with Hazel who was responsible for judging 2 honey classes, cut comb, dry mead, cake of beeswax, honey cake, photographs and composite display classes. She was very enthusiastic and keen to share and explain her professional methods. She had brought with her a bag which she delved into to produce special equipment needed to help with her judging including, for example, honey colour grading glasses, weighing scales, special cake cutting knives & wine glasses, to name but a few.
I was amazed by the attention given to technical details before any comparison of the qualities of the entries. Many entries were disqualified on technicalities – for example every beeswax block was weighed, the diameter of every cake was measured and each pair of honey jars was scrutinised to check whether they contained honey from the same source.
Then, when every flawed entry had been eliminated, the final judgement was made by the mysterious art of sniffing and tasting – Hazel very generously offered a taste of each to me.
Overall, it was a really illuminating and fascinating experience from which I learnt an awful lot and thoroughly enjoyed. I certainly recommend it to anyone else interested in the judging process.
