A Visit To The Abelo Open Day

A very early start this morning. I am on my way north up to the Abelo Open Day for the best pizza, the best barbecue, and without a doubt, the best beekeeping auction in the UK. Oh, we have had a really good drive up here, probably about 30 minutes to go now. I'm looking forward to getting there, getting my bacon bath, and looking at all of the amazing beekeeping equipment. Ah, the Abello Open Day. I absolutely love it. I wish it was a little bit sunnier though. I came to the Abello Open Day last year and we had the best day. It was beautiful sunshine, 30 degrees the entire day. And I turned up today and it is raining, but luckily I think this is the end of the rain. We look at the weather map, it was torrential rain forecast for today and it's cleared right up. So the Abello Open Day, what is it all about? Every single year Abello, this company here, have their open day. You might think, why, why am I that fussed about Abello? I used to do the social media for them. I don't do that anymore, but I just love this company. I love everything about it. I love their equipment, I love their hives, I love the people that work there, I love their ethos, I love what they do for the beekeeping community, and I just want to support their Abello Open Day. And it's great, they don't ask for any money, there's no admission fee, there's nothing like that, and they provide you with pizza and food and barbecue and pretty much everything you want. And then to top it all off, you get discounts on brilliant Abello products. So that's what today's about. I'm going to meet some people, eat some food, do some auctioning, and just have some fun. So, So this is the reason that I love the Abello Open Day. Look at the amount of equipment. This bit here in particular has got me very, very excited. I always come to the Abello Open Day and I always want the next bit of kit, but this here is a full extraction line. So you have a de-boxer that goes there, all of the frames come down, there's uncapping knives and uncapping rollers to make sure it gets everything. It then gets transported all the way up to the top here. You can roller it through or you can use Pretty sure that is chain-driven there as well. Takes the frames up here, you can spin it all around, close the extractor, try not to break it. And then you've got another line here that needs to go through. That's not at the right place there, that is the loosener. But how cool is all of this here? I really do want something like this. I probably don't need something like this, don't tell that to Damien, but I do want it. I'm going to go and film somebody with this exact piece of kit, hopefully 2026, because I want to film it with the honey in. That's what's going to make it really cool. But you can see this is some serious level of equipment. But then down this side, you kind of have this as the top tier and then all of the different tiers down. Not in terms of quality, 'cause all of the quality, the premium quality stuff here is the same, but in terms of the amount of hives that you need. So that one there is probably, if you've got 500 or 1,000 hives, you're gonna go with that one. And then maybe like this here, there's an ApiMelter that would fit onto that one. But maybe one of the smaller extractors over there is suitable for someone with 100 or 50 hives. Every year I come and say I'm not gonna buy anything. Every year I leave with a truck full. So let me show you something very, very cool. And I did show this to people last year, the Aplytherapy Shed, but I want to show it to you this year with A complete and utter makeover. So a normal shed, little awning, you can go inside. What makes an Apitherapy shed so cool is the ability for the bees to live inside the structure. So you pull out the frames, we have some ventilation mesh, we have a crown board. And if I pop those off to one side, down here you add the frames in. You're gonna go 1, 2, 3, 20 frames for each one of these containers. And there are 4 in the entire beehive, in the entire Apitherapy shed, I should say. So we're gonna have 80 frames of bees and all of the smell emanating upwards. Now obviously if it emanates upwards here, it's no good. Slide it back into the beehive and let's go inside and see what those bees make of it. So welcome to the Apitherapy shed. Come inside and I'll show you around. Over here is where those beehives slid in, and if I show you on the other side, you'll see just how well that works. Now you have your bench, but inside here, this is where the colonies of bees live. and the smell just emanates up like that and fills the room. I know where I would be heading if this was in my apiary, and it will be in my apiary next year. I'm gonna be heading down to this bench here and just chilling out and listening to the bees and feeling that energy. But I wanna give this a Black Mountain Honey makeover, and this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna open up the window a little bit, and I'm gonna give this apitherapy shed something visual from the inside. We're gonna put a big Perspex structure up there. We're going to put some frames in it. We're going to make it so you can sit inside the shed and you can feel the bees, you can smell the bees, and you can also see the bees. So that's something different for 2026. We are going to modify this apiary shed, put it into the forest and make it something brilliant. If you want to see that, definitely hit the subscribe button. You good? Abigail's nice. Are you excited? And how old are you, Abigail? 8? You know, I've got a little— I've got a girl who's 7. She's really similar age and size to you. Traveled 200 miles to get here. No way, 200 miles? So where do you live? I see Saracens. You're from further down south? Yeah. Where do you live? We're Hartford, aren't we? I've seen the pizzas here. Do you like pizza? And do you know the pizzas are all free all day? You can have as many as you want. Very busy. Enjoy, enjoy the rugby. Do well with the Bees. Nice to meet you. Do well with the rugby and cricket. We'll see you on Sky at some point. Sam. Sam, pleased to meet you. What's your surname, Sam? Brister. Brister, I remember it. You order Queens. Yeah, on the channel and everything. Awesome. How are the bees going? Good. Yeah? Really good. Is this your dad? Yeah. Hi, Sam's dad. You good? Yeah. How far, how far have you driven? We're only about an hour away. That's not too bad, is it? And what have you got? Have you bought some stuff? I've brought something for you. Oh, you bought it for me? Yeah. No! Oh man, that is like the coolest thing ever. Have you? Thank you, that's really kind of you, Sam. How have you made that? That is amazing. I did it with like a rubber cock bangle. Sam, I get, I get like occasionally get made some things, yeah. This is the coolest thing I think I've ever been made. That is going up here. So at the moment we're building like a bit of a studio. Yeah, yeah. And like I'm gonna, I'm gonna hang this up somewhere, be like this, stick it up. It's too good to like wipe the feet on, and it'd be good, wouldn't it? We'll get it somewhere. Get a picture of it? Yes, yes, of course. Here you go. Cool. Cheers, Sam. Thank you. So definitely my number one favourite thing at the Abello Open Show, and you do not get this at other shows, which is free food. Free food for everyone. Free burgers, free sausages, and these are proper Polish-style sausages. You've never seen anything like this. It's probably my number one highlight coming back for the sausages and the barbecue each year. But take a look at this as well. It's not just free barbecue. How many other shows do you know actually where you go there, you get free drinks, free coffee, free tea, free water, free sausages, free burgers, Honey extraction equipment, and then we're going to join the back of the queue. This is how popular it is. Free pizza as well. But we're going to kind of skip through Zane. We're going to come through Aaron and Lou and Andrew and Matt somewhere else as well are busy making the pizzas, and they are here doing a fantastic job. And these pizzas really are exceptional. Absolutely free. Can you believe that? We're going to go somewhere else though, Andrew. Thank you very much. I'll stop. And take a look just how busy it is here. Sorry, let me through. I want to show you my favorite thing that I've seen so far today in this Abelo Open Show, which is the biggest honey warmer you have ever seen. I'm so jealous. I do this every time I come here. It is a word of warning. I've got this one over here, so this is my one which fits all of the buckets that I need. You get supers in there as well. I've got 2 of those, and I've also got the little small one there. Works perfectly for my needs, but I could trade in All of them, honey, and just kind of live in here. What's it like? It is absolutely huge in here. So it gets a pallet load of buckets. You can get 36 honey buckets in here, and then it's big enough to get national super, national super, national super. So 4 national supers across, and then you'll get them 1, 2, 3, 4— I'm pretty sure it's 8 high. So 32 supers. You can get honey barrels in here as well, or you can get up to 36 buckets. Oh, another thing I need to add to the list, but this one really is really Again, I've got this. Sean bought for £50. £50. Anyone else? £55. Um, got £60 over here. £65. Okay, excellent. £70. Good man. Okay, I think that's it. We've got one poly roof to go. You've got £5 over here. Anyone else? What's on £100? No. Okay, there we go. That's for you. I think it was £99, isn't it? Right, where are we going next then, Ian? £800. Fresh bid. There we go. Do you want to go any higher than £800? I'll win on this vehicle. Go on, where do you want to go? £820, okay, that's good. There we go. Any advance on £820 before this one gets sold? Sold! That is the end of the auction then. If you're not going to sell that one, it's not going to go down any further, is it? Thank you so much everyone for coming. I'll be around for a little bit if anyone wants to have a chat, but thank you for supporting kind of Damien's day. Thank you to all the people who have provided the food. So I'll get the names right now: Aaron, Lou, and Andrew with the pizzas. Let's have a big for the pizzas. I think a big round of applause because that was amazing. But equally, a big round of applause for Damien and Abello for providing all the money for the pizzas. They paid for everything and the incredible barbecue. So thank you, Damien. It's been a really fun day, and I hope everyone got what they wanted and enjoyed it. And definitely come back next year because it will be even bigger, I'm sure. Thank you. See you later. So I have had a wonderful day here at the Abello Open Day. I've eaten three hot dogs. 3 hot dogs, but I'm yet to have my pizza. But I think Aaron has stored it in a little box for me. The Abello Open Day has been a lot of fun. That auction was very fast-paced. Damien is going to have to collect a lot more dented boxes for next year. I will definitely be back. I think it will be bigger, it will be better, but I have had so much fun.