I’ve been a Judges’ Steward a few times at our Association Honey Show and also at The County Honey Show and have always thoroughly enjoyed the experience, fascinated by how the Judge can find a winner in so many entries, be it honey, wax, mead, honey cakes or photos and I have always come away from the Shows exhausted but wanting to know more.
I decided to apply to be a Judges’ Steward at the National Honey Show at Sandown Park Surry and sent off my application with my fingers crossed that I would be accepted but also knowing that I probably wouldn’t be as part of the criteria was that consideration would be given to those applicants who are already starting their journey to becoming a Honey Show Judge. My anxious wait was soon over and I was contacted to say that my application was successful and together with my white coat and hat I was to be ready for a 08.30 briefing on Thursday 24th October at Sandown Park.
I was to be a Steward for John Hendrie, he has kept bees for over 50 years, he is a moderator for the British Beekeepers’ Association Examinations Board, in charge of training the examinators and has been on the National Honey Show Committee since 1981.
He was judging Class 88, ‘A Honey Label’, criteria – a standard label of your own design, actual size, to fit on a standard 227g, 340g or 454g jar produced in any medium to comply with current UK regulations, to be displayed on an empty honey jar, this was certainly going to test my Module 2 knowledge.
Labelling Regulations state the word HONEY must be used, metric weight must appear, at least 4mm for jars exceeding 200g, name & residential address including postcode must appear, country of origin must be shown, best before date must appear, if the date is given in full there is no need for lot number.
Judging soon got under way, I was tasked with putting the jars in an order which the Judge required, sorting out the duplicates and measuring the height of the lettering for the weights. I think we were both amazed as to how many labels were incorrect mainly the size of the metric weight numerical, the word Honey was used on all the labels, although in some cases it was misleading in its description, some of the wording was so small that we could hardly read it, and some of the labels had so much information on that if honey had been in the jar, we probably wouldn’t have seen it and there were also some 360g entrants, which were not in the critera. It didn’t take John Hendrie long to come to his final conclusion of the winner and subsequent awards and it was my task to put all the jars back in order.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a Steward.
James entered the Melomel Mead class, 2 jars of Ling Heather and Container of Cut Comb, Lee entered a bottle of Sweet Mead, and myself & Jitesh entered microscope slides of pollen and bee anatomy, and James got a 3rd prize for Melomel Mead. It was a successful day, 3rd Prize is definitely a winner.
