The Society organised the Honey Tent at the show on Sunday 3rd August 2025.
The Honey Tent was stewarded by members of the SDBKS. If you would like to help as a Steward or Judges’ Assistant next year please have a word with Gill Lyons or Martin Davies on sdbks.secretary@gmail.com
The Society organised the usual array of activities in and around the tent:
- The Bee Experience – wear a bee suit and watch a beehive being opened: donation requested.
- The Honey Show1 – enter you best honey for judging by a national judge.
- Roll a candle – make your own candle from a sheet of wax: small charge.
- Honey and bee products shop – buy honey, wax candles, soap and other products of the hive.
- Bee Information Centre – learn about bees and beekeeping.
Despite the wet start it was a brilliant day. We had over 130 entries and this year we had a new (to us) judge, Debbie Smith. Debbie is a regular competitor at the RWAS and National show, as well as many others, and is an in-demand judge for shows all over the UK. She was keen to judge our show after hearing all the good things about it from us and other judges.
Debbie did a fantastic job on the Saturday, ploughing her way through the entries and was really impressed with the number and standard of items. It was nice to see her there on the Sunday happy to discuss the various judging aspects with those that entered and outlining ways to improve their items to award winning standards. She is looking forward to returning to judge us again at some future point.
Many thanks also to those who entered items. There was a great display in all classes and the visitors were in awe of the high standard and range of exhibits. It is my opinion that our show is 2nd only to the RWAS in the standard, range and number of entries.
The full results list is available below.
The Novice award for candles was won by Rebecca Patrick for her really impressive pair of ornate moulded items.
The Novice award for honey went to 13 year old Caleb Bradley and he also picked up the Joe’s Ice-cream Cup for Best Novice. Caleb has only been involved with bees for about the last year or so and is developing into a natural born competitor. He is a regular visitor to our apiary and is developing into a well rounded young beekeeper, he even helped out in the bee tent demonstrations.
The Dorothea Daniel-Jenkins cup, for total points, was won, for the 2nd year in a row by Chris Bradley. Chris’s range of entries was superb and consistently took awards in each class she entered.
The final award, the prestigious Blue Ribbon, went to Gerti Axtmann for her lovely honey. This is the 2nd year in a row she has won this and last year’s honey also won 1st at the RWAS and National Honey Show. She and her bees are obviously doing something right!
GOWER SHOW HONEY SECTION PRIZES 2025
Full details of the Gower Show can be found on its website.
- Details of the Honey Show and schedule of competition categories is available here. ↩︎
[updated 18 August 2025]