The bee auction

It's been an usually active social life here at Nelson House over the last couple of weeks. Easter saw us in London, followed by Andrew's birthday and then last weekend visiting friends in Surrey. Roger is an amateur bee keeper and Saturday coincided with the annual West Sussex Beekeepers bee auction. Now I have always had a soft spot for bees and have secretly harboured a desire to keep them, so thought this would be an ideal opportunity to learn more.

The auction was held at the Brinsbury campus, part of  Chichester College, near Pulborough. There were over 300 lots, all spread out over the car park. Lots were varied as you can see from the photographs (apologies to any apiarists if I've used the wrong terms!)

Smokers

Bee hives

Skeps - used for collecting swarms

Used for melting bees wax

Bee hive 'extensions'

Inspecting the lots

Mortimer on bee look out duty

The auction underway

In the end we bought nothing, apart from a lovely pub lunch and some honey flapjack, but I was quite enthused about bee keeping and had a good look at Roger's bee hives. He also kindly sent me away with a bee book and some catalogues.

Roger's hives (and yes their garden is gorgeous)

Apart from bee related activities we did a lot of walking with the dogs. Ben was happy (almost) to share his space with Mortimer.

Move over!

And yet again Mortimer found more water to splash about in.

Water dog

So once we returned home I did some bee related searches and have put our names down for a taster day in the summer. Watch this space!