The BeeHolder, October 2009

South Glamorgan’s bee stand at this year’s Royal Welsh was probably the best ever seen.  It is well photographed in the latest quarterly edition of the Welsh Beekeeper.  It was obviously designed by a professional with text written by someone with an eye for capturing salient points without the clutter of too much information.  So often bee information stands are either twee or so scientifically complicated that they can only be appreciated by those already converted to an advanced state of bee awareness.  South Glamorgan BKA kindly agreed to lend us the stand for the Shrewsbury Flower Show and the Glansevern Food Festival. 

At Shrewsbury our stand was over twice the size of the next largest and our “Montgomeryshire BeeKeepers Association” sign so dominated that many visitors had assumed that we had organised the whole of the Bee Honey and wine section rather than being merely guests of Shropshire BeeKeepers Association.  At Glansevern the bigger space we had been promised became so whittled down by other organisations coming in to share a marquee that we had to find and finance a marquee of our own. Fortunately Chairman Doug’s Church came to the rescue and put a tent up over an already erected stand.

Comments on our display were most favourable.  The thanks is not to ourselves but the clever designers who recognise the psychology of crowd behaviour.  People must be able to read the salient points at a distance without the need to make a commitment to enter the inner space of an empty stand. And, if a stand is already full with people then the text should be high and large enough for people to read it over the heads of those engaged in the bee activities such as examining virtual hives, drawing, honey, tasting and looking at live bees in an observation hive. 

On the far left of the picture above, a child is standing on a box to view the observation hive that is built into the wall of the hive. The hive was at a height for an adult to see without bending down. Children are more used to climbing up to see things than are adults used to bending down.  We had a petition calling on Powys Council to pay more attention to beekeeping within education and a raffle for a beehive which made over £500 profit.

The picture below shows Chairman Doug Wood presenting raffle winners Nigel and Rebecca Moulding from Berriew with a National Hive.  The Mouldings dashed back to Glansevern as soon as they picked up Lembit’s message on their answer machine. Rebecca, who bought the ticket, said they could hear the crowd cheering in the background as Lembit told them they had won. Rebecca gave the hive to her husband as an extra birthday present.