2016 Beverley Beekeepers' Annual Auction

30th of April is Reunification Day in Vietnam, closer to home this year it was also the Beverley Beekeepers Association Annual Auction. Previously the auction has taken place on the last Sunday in April, this year it was on the last Saturday. As per usual it was in Woodmansey Village Hall, last time I was there it was for a couple of friends' wedding reception -there was more alcohol and less bee stuff that time.

In a major departure from my usual Saturday routine I got up bright and early. Normally I don't see Saturday mornings, glancing out of the window I was met by a warm sunny day and and the sight of a suspiciously well fed pigeon picking grass seeds from my very recently reseeded lawn. After a feeding the cats, checking Facebook, checking Instagram and getting a coffee I decided this year I'd try flogging a couple of nucs. I've got three National Nucs from previous bee purchases and as I use Commercial brood boxes they're very little use to me. One's on top of an outbuilding as a bait hive but the only things attracted to it seems to be spiders the size of your hand, I decided to leave it up there for now. The other two Nucs I scorched and scraped. I found that the ply of one was delaminating so it probably wasn't really sellable so decided to leave it. Finally armed with my chequebook and the one good, spider free, Nuc I set of for Woodmansey. I didn't need anything in particular this year but was hoping to pick up a travel screen as I now have bees in two locations.

When I rolled up there was a row of brand new National Hives outside the Hall and in the field behind the bee colonies were lined up behind a rope. Inside the hall there was 8 rows of wares ranging from bee hives to boilers.

Three of the many National Hives on offer

Feeders, a Wax Melter, Hives, Petunias, you name it it was probably there.

My Nuc was the last item submitted for selling. If I'd been serious about selling some kit rather than just clearing a little shed space I'd've arrived sooner to get my items placed earlier in the auction schedule when there's more people bidding. .

First thing I looked at was the little selection of beekeeping books. One that was pointed out to me was a nondescript looking book with a handwritten replacement cover. Turns out it  was a 1952 first edition of The Pollen Loads of the Honeybee by Dorothy Hodges.

A colour plate from The Pollen Loads of the Honeybee

Pollen chart

The book had some amazing illustrations and colour plates, at the back a chart of pollen colours which rather than having been printed into the book was made up of small rectangles of each colour glued onto the page. It didn't meet it's reserve so it's original owner still has it, and I think it may actually be part of the Beverley Beekeepers' Association Library. If you have £100 burning a hole in your pocket there's some later reprints of the book on Amazon at the moment.

Unlike previous years all the hives were National, previously there's been WBC, Smith and Commercial hives and components when I've been  but this year it looks like people have settled on a standard. I'd've liked to have seen some Commercial size Nucs myself, think I'll be making my own this summer. Last year if I remember rightly it was almost all National except for one Commercial Brood Box. Something I did notice was more Polystyrene than previously. Looking on the forums it looks like most still prefer to use wood but there's some suggestion Polystyrene may be better for over wintering due to it's insulating properties -although nobody seems to be mentioning that poly hives tend to have thicker sides than their wood counterparts.

Unused, painted, complete Poly Hive

Poly Nucs with built in feeders

Three display hives all sold, perfect for anyone who wants a bee colony in their living room. Boxes of Apiguard dated 2018 were going for £16 a pop, saving buyers about a fiver and postage costs. There always seems to be a honey creamer at these auctions, this time it sold for £9 -looked like a Thorn one.

A couple of the Display Hives that were on offer

The majority of kit for sale this year was new rather than used

Random bits

There's usually a few boxes of random used bits, whilst there were some this year there were also quite a few lots of mixed brand new kit like a pair of gauntlets and two hive tools packaged together. There was a range of extractors, some powered some manual and a cage to convert an existing extractor for radial to tangenital. One buyer picked up a plastic 4 frame Extractor for £40.

Extractors, powered or manual

Some bright spark seems to have started painting old smokers, should make them a little harder to lose in long grass for those with outapiaries. There were also a lot of new smokers and a few smoker bellows. I bid on a couple of bellows but didn't win, eventually I bagged a red painted mini smoker for 50p. Just the thing when you only need to open one hive, that it looks like a rocket from a fifties sci-fi comic is just a bonus.

Smokers of all ages, some painted.
I picked up the little red one.

There were a few boilers dotted about the place. Not something you'd initially associate with beekeeping but useful things. I picked one up a few years ago intending to use it to clean frames but now use it for making gallons of syrup, other things people use them for include wax extraction and mead making. I think the Burco went for £8.

Tea or coffee, by the gallon.

The strangest thing at the auction was probably a Servis Extraspin 503. This is a device for drying clothes by spinning them at high speeds. I did wonder what it was doing there but there was helpful note attached advising that it makes a very good heather honey extractor. It looked new to my untrained eye and there was a lot of competition for it and eventually it sold for £54.

Great for drying clothing or extracting Heather Honey

Moving outside there were, I think, 19 colonies in total. Mostly they were in full size brood boxes with a only a few in 5 or 6 frame Nucs, towards the end there were some 12 frame double poly nucs. The bee prices were unpredictable as ever. A 5 frame Nuc with a 2015 Queen went for £130 another for £110. At this point it was getting a little nippy so I popped back inside to get my hoody, when I came back there a populated National brood box being auctioned and the bidding was at £90. I hadn't really planned to buy any bees on the day and hadn't actually heard the details of the colony but as it seemed to be going so cheaply I thought I'd put in a couple of bids. I got them for £110 which is less than any of the three Nucs I've bought previously. Later turned out what I'd got for my money was 10 frames of bees and 6 frames of brood with a 2015 Queen. Bargain.

Bees for sale, about 5 workers for a penny.

In previous years people have stood up to the rope but this time the bees were a little feisty so most folk were stood back, except one chap seemed happy to let a bee sit on his forehead till it lost interest. I think allthe bees sold with the double Nucs fetching £160 apiece. Shortly after the bee auction it started raining heavily, which is possibly why the bees were a little unhappy.

Back inside about 20 boxes of jars and lids were quickly auctioned off. I picked up a big sack of 65mm jar lids on the off chance they'd fit some jars I have -they didn't so they'll probably go on eBay at some point. Noteable bargains, other than the bees, were a guy from Goole who got a honey warming cabinet made from a converted fridge for £1 and someone else bagging 50 DN4 frames for £25. I got my Travel Screen for £1. There were a few plants for sale but they didn't generate much interest, a few trays of Petunia's failed to sell and I got 12 pots of Chives for £2. I unsuccessfully bid on some Snelgrove type boards but lost out, think there was two lots of two. I'll have to make some more this summer.

£5 went a long way

There were a few bags of bee accessories and I picked up the last one for a fiver. It contained two rapid feeders, a hive tool, two porter escapes, a queen clip, queen cage and blue queen marking pen. I'll probably not use the porter escapes (does anyone?) but the pen will be used for a couple of unmarked Queens from last year and the rest I've already got a use for.

One Handed Queen Catcher

For £3 I got a "One Handed Queen Catcher". This is a clever  device from Korean company Yasaeng Beeking Supplies. Who hasn't heard of them, right? Anyway in case the name didn't give it away, it's a device for catching a Queen bee and marking her. Usually you use a Queen clip to catch her, then transfer her to a marking cage, the transfer is a little risky and can lead to a Queen flapping away. TBH all queen catchers are one handed really so perhaps something got lost in translation, anyway having the two devices combined should make things easier and reduce lost Queens -yes I've had one fly off during transfer from clip to cage..


Other gubbins I picked up were some small over trousers -they were thrown in with the smoker I bought, an icing sugar dusting screen, a Thornes English Feeder and a stainless steel uncapping tray which had previously belonged to Preston Honey going by the sign thrown in with it.

I also picked up a copy of Maurice Marterlinck's The Life of the Bee translated by Alfred Sutro and published by George Allen & Unwin. It was originally penned in 1901, I'm not sure what year this copy was published but the last date listed was 1912 and a previous owner, one W.D. Holmes, wrote their name in it in 1941. Beekeeping has changed a lot since 1901, the Varroa Mite wasn't here, neither was American Foul Brood, Tracheal Mite hadn't raised it's head, our bees were black, farming practices and land management was totally different too but I think it should be an interesting read.

The blackened travel screen in the middle was just what I was looking for

As well as buying the Travel Screen I'd been hoping for it turned out the colony I bought also had an identical one included with the hive so one to keep at home and one for the outapiary too, once I've given them a good clean and sterilised them. I drove the bees straight to the out apiary, according to Google maps the guy they were bought from lives 2 miles as the bee flies from my apiary. I don't want them flying back to him so I've left them with some grass blocking the hive entrance. My plan was to remove it in three days time but by Monday evening they'ed done it themselves anyway and foragers were returning to the right place.