Bristol Honey Show
This year : 5-6th September 2026
The Bee & Pollination Festival is held annually at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, in Stoke Park Rd, Stoke Bishop and includes the Bristol Beekeepers honey show. It is a great opportunity for Bristol Beekeepers to engage with the public and is a prestigious National Honey Show Blue Ribbon event attracting entries from across the region and often nationally with a nationally qualified judge. The 94 year old Silver Queen trophy is presented to the entrant with most points across the range of main honey wax and mead classes. Novices are especially encouraged to enter, both in the main classes and the specific novice class. The main prize winners for overall class points and best in show receive beautiful Bristol Blue Glass trophies.
The classes cover a wide range of honey, wax and other beekeeping related activities. As well as the honey, mead, candles and artwork we have a class for honey cakes which we ask volunteers from the Botanical Gardens to judge – a poplar role! It is always a fantastic sight to see the range of produce presented, particularly the many different shades of honey that our hard working bees produce.
Other activities at the Honey Show
In addition to the honey show, volunteers from Bristol Beekeepers run a honey and candle sales stand, an observation hive, wax candle rolling for children and a regular beekeeping demonstration throughout the day in the grounds. A series of talks from beekeepers, researchers and pollinator supporting organisations also run through both days of the festival and there are guided tours of the gardens available.
A wide range of other displays are also included in the festival and often include skep making, pollinator friendly plants for sale and organisations supporting other pollinating insects such as bumble bee.
For those members interested in selling honey, please see the BBKA website for guidance on legislation that must be followed.
If you are a member and would like to find out more about exhibiting please contact our Secretary. Prizes are awarded during the weekend. You do not need to be an experienced beekeeper to exhibit and there are plenty of exhibit categories in the schedule to pick from. Every year we also rely on our members to support with running of the event. If you are interested in helping with this we will provide an opportunity to sign up closer to the date.
Show schedule for 2026
This will be posted in July 2026.
More information on the Bee and Pollination Festival is via the Bristol University website.
Donate to Bristol Beekeepers Charity
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