It has been a while and I have thought of many of you often. My absence was not the result of any thing any one on the forum said or did. I just needed to get caught up on some of my other chores. and having 4 computers go down all in a row and so been using the one that has been hooked up to the TV but it is to far away to read some of the text and it is a pain to type using the ON SCREEN KEY BOARD so I vowed not to visit the forum till I got one of the desktops up and working.
A lots been happening in the last while. The fall fair went well and we had an excellent display as always. The interest in entering honey in the competition has been really encouraging. We had lots of entries in all category. Both in hive products, (honey, frames of honey, creamed honey, cut comb honey, and comb honey, observation hives, pollen, and chunk honey). As well in the Baking with Honey Classes. To promote honey use, the director of the honey division in the 1980's got 6 baking with honey classes added to the backing division. In 1998 was the first year I judged the honey competition and in about 2005 the baking with honey was moved into the honey division as the bee display was moved into another building away from the baking displays. So from about 2005 I have been judging these classes as well. We have (Jams and marmalade's made with honey, Fruit canned with honey, 3 different jars of fruit. Cookies made with Honey, 3 (any type) Uniced Loaf /Bread made with Honey. Junior Section-Muffins made with Honey, no fruit 3. Teen Section-Cookies made with honey, 3)
For these classes Beekeepers from the club\area donate honey for prizes these classes. 1st prize is 1Kg about $13.00 retail value. In the cash prize for first place it has been $5.00 raised to $8.00 this year. So it raises interest in using honey in cooking.