NAHBE Uncensored - A Full Length Bee Expo Film

Oh my God, isn't that cool? Hey Lawrence, hi, check this out. I messed that right up at the beginning, didn't I?

And we got a son of a—

Let's get inside, talk bees, buy some— Oh geez, Simon, did it go on camera? Yes. Okay, there we go, enough of this.

First—

yeah, good.

Sorry, this is cool. You did it.

Hello, Chris. Pleasure.

This one is one not to be missed. There we go, I think that's good. Is that a good enough outro? Oh, do we need him to turn that off? We are on our way to Narby, and when I say we, it's me and Zane this time. I cannot wait for it.

Let's make it happen.

Right, so I made it into Manchester Airport, and as I said last time, when you look around, everything is hexagons, everything is bees, everything is apiaries. And we are on our way. We're going to go and chill out in the lounge for a little bit, catch the flight. Probably got another 17, 18 hours before we get to Narbi, but when we get there, We will be fresh, we will be ready to go. I actually cannot wait. I'm very excited. So I'm sitting here in the lounge and I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit nervous. I'm thinking about the events, I'm thinking about my presentations, I'm thinking about meeting people. I kind of know it's going to be okay, but this is like my boyhood dream. I'm meeting my VIP favorite YouTubers as well at the same time and bringing Zane out. The stakes just got a lot higher, but I'm feeling the nerves, but I'm pretty certain it's going to be okay.

Fingers crossed.

So I couldn't leave the lounge without a few sweets for my daughter. Let's get her some love hearts. Everything at Manchester Airport is bee-related, so I'm gonna get a couple of these, bring them home for my daughters as well. Hello, come in, come in. Right, let me show you the room that Cayman got for me at the Crown Plaza. It is pretty special.

Come have a look.

It's actually bigger than my house. Like, the bed is longer that way than it is that way, and I've got my own little desk. I've been doing some work. So last time I came to Nabi, I was doing all of this on my own. It was a little bit stressful when I was trying to film Mr. Ed and then getting the cameras wrong and not turning it on. I'm so much happier this time because I've got the main man Zane here to sort of show you around some of the stuff that we've got. This is the one that you're going to see Zane carrying around the whole day. It's our new RS 4 Pro gimbal. We've got a suitcase full to the brim with top quality camera gear. I cannot wait to see what Zane does with it.

I can't wait.

So we finally made it here to the expo, 3 hours early, but luckily got VIP access. So let's get inside, meet some people, talk about these, and have some fun. So Nabi is just on another level. You look at the name tags here, there isn't just one table, not two tables, there's probably 20 tables all the way along there, and then another 20 over there. I can't see my name tag here though, so I'm going to go and explore, see if I can find it. I need to get my name tag on and get get into the expo and see what's going on. So every time I come to the expo, I find myself buying like a lot of different hats, and the reason is, is because The head sizing out here must just be slightly different, and I have a massive head, and in the UK hats do not fit me. So when I see nice cool bee hats like this, I'm buying all of them. Probably going to end up with like 30 hats by the end of it, but hey ho, you're only in America once, time to enjoy it.

Right, straight into the expo.

the first place I headed was over to Bob Binney to do a little talk about his beeswax. Bob produces incredible beeswax, and if you want to see that entire video, check it out up there because it's probably one of my favorite ones at the expo. So I'm having a wander around the expo, and every time I come here, I'm just blown away by the size. Now, I mentioned at the beginning A little bit nervous about my presentation. It's quite a big presentation room and it is just over there, so let's go take a look. Oh, so here we are, presentation room. Look at all the seats in here, it's absolutely huge. This is a big, big thing. I think there's about 300 or 400 people in here, and looking at the numbers It's going to be packed as well. So I am excited. My worst nightmare is coming into a room like this, a huge room, and there being like 6 people over there kind of heckling me and not that many people being here. Hopefully tomorrow it is absolutely rammed, and then fingers crossed everything will be okay. Right now, this is cool, and this is something that you do not see in the UK. I have no need for this whatsoever, but oh my goodness, I want it. The Hummer B Turbo 2. I'm hanging out at NARBI with the Dirt Rooster Randy McCaffrey, and we're just having a chat talking about things. And if you want to see that long extended video, check it out because it is in the top right-hand corner. But I'm going to hand over to Randy and he is going to tell you about these awesome license plates.

These license plates are available now in Mississippi and they support a nonprofit organization that my wife has built, Magnolia Honeybee Education Exchange. And that is for educating school-aged kids on honeybees. We do civic groups, homeschool groups, public schools, anything that— and we're collaborating with beekeepers across the state that are already in that role to help support them with equipment and hands-on teaching aids, things like that. But the funds for this license plate will help, or from the license plate, will help support all that.

So there we go, there's the license plate. That is pretty cool. We need something like this in the UK. Now, you would not do this at an expo in the UK. You wouldn't walk around the car park looking at all the cool cars. But check this one out here, a Duramax 6.6-liter GMC. I don't know what that means, but oh my God, isn't that cool?

I'm gonna take that back for my little girl.

Here we go. We have it, yeah? Amazing, thank you very much. So I'm at the Hilco stand, 3 different gyro machines here. These are very, very cool.

Check this one.

When I was here a couple of years ago I bought myself a buffalo leather wash bag and it's like my prized possession. I absolutely love it and it's a bit battered now, so I'm back at the expo again and I'm going to buy myself 2 more because they are the best thing ever.

Hey, Laurence.

Oh, hi.

Check this out.

Want to see what we got there?

Oh, this is, uh, from Technically Beekeeping. It's the latest generation of smokers.

How cool is this?

It's a cool smoke.

That is pretty cool. It, uh, how long does it last?

It'll last— that tube will last for about 50 inspections.

Okay.

Um, it's, it's got different scents. They're still trying to figure out the scent of what they want to put in it, but what it does is it's Wild, because you spray it on the top bars.

Yeah.

And the bees will go down and they'll stay down longer than a regular smoker.

Really?

Now for me, I live in California.

Yeah.

So the biggest thing in California is forest fires.

Oh, perfect for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm so scared of using my smoker in it.

What's the name of it?

Technically Beekeeping.

Technically Beekeeping have smoker guns like this. They are very, very cool. So I'm here at the Easy Peasy stand and I've got a few bits to do over the next few days, but I just spotted these, which are My favorite, without a doubt, my favorite grafting tool. They are so good. It's a Chinese-style grafting tool, but it's the premium version. So it's a little 2-pack there, Chinese tool. You've got additional grips here. The plunger's much better. But the big thing that I really like about it is instead of having the reed at the bottom, you have this thicker bit of plastic. For me, it makes picking up the lava so much easier, and it makes pushing them off back down into the cups a breeze. These are the ones that I actually use. These are my favorite grafting tools. So again, I do not know why they don't do this in the UK, but I am at the muffin stand and the cake stand and the biscuit stand, and the company has paid to promote this. So this one here is sponsored by Noroa, which is a new varroa treatment, and they have basically just provided free muffins and cakes for everyone. So I'm gonna have a white chocolate biscuit, and I think I'm gonna enjoy it very, very much. Take a look at that. That is a secondary Asian hornet nest, a yellow hornet nest, and it is huge. Now, Asian hornets start off with a tiny little embryo nest, and then they convert it into a primary nest that can be kind of like this size here. Got one over there. And then they go up and create the secondary nest like this in the highest part of the tree. And this is only about half of it. The hornets go out, they chew up the wood, they spit it in their mouths, and then they create this amazing structure here. Asian hornets, yellow-legged hornets, a little scary but fascinating to watch.

Hey, you want to try a really odd honey?

Ooh, yeah.

Why is it odd? It's exciting, isn't it? Just out here. I'm going to have a couple and get a good old dip, I think.

Most honey comes from nectar, right? In Virginia this year, the spotted lanternflies moved in, invasive insect.

This is what I've heard. Yeah, like, so it's, um, honeydew.

Exactly. Yeah. So during a time of the summer when normally I don't get any honey, now check out that texture, right? I mean, that's the part I find, like, the, the consistency of it. Isn't that wild?

That is wild. We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to B-roll that afterwards. It's like frothy, right?

So the honey, I got a fair amount of it during a time of year when normally my bees don't make any honey during a normal dearth. So in July, like, we normally have to feed small colonies, and instead I was struggling with too much honey.

Yeah.

And when I extracted the honey, most of it has this at the top. I got 3,000, 4,000 pounds of honey, and all the buckets have a foam. And when I put it into a bottling tank, I get more of the foam. And I'm not sure if it's from a bit of fermentation in the honeydew before the bees, you know, thicken it down. But the honey itself is quite stable.

It's cool. So you say it's lanternflies?

Yeah, so this is the foam from the lanternfly honey. Most of the honey is more of a liquid.

I probably have a sample in my pocket. So like that little thin sediment at the bottom, that's what it's like?

More, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And then for anyone at home, lanternfly, so it's like an insect, and then the bees go and harvest the little sap-filled bits on the insect.

Correct, yeah.

It's a leafhopper, right? So it's like similar to an aphid, where it's sucking down the sap but doesn't want the sugars. It wants protein. So it gets rid of the sugars as the honeydew, and then the bees go after it. So here's your normal honey look, right? So it's a little bit opaque, which I think might be more bubbles that haven't come.

Oh, good. Can I taste that as well?

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Okay, sweet.

Right, let's go the foam first. So lanternfly foamy honey.

Let's have a big old bit. Oh my gosh, you're gonna eat a lot.

Whoa.

Sweetness. I think it's good like if you spread it on meats, cheeses, something like that, like a charcuterie board. It's kind of fun.

It's like a— it is a bit yeasty, isn't it? It's a bit— it's not fermented, but it's just got that taste.

Nice.

I really like that. So that's the fly?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this part here is orange, the underwing. So that orange, and then the abdomen there you can see is yellow. That's like, I'm poisonous. And so birds and stuff don't eat it at first, and then eventually they go, oh, well, we can eat it. It's not poisonous.

They learn, innit, eventually. So it's the end of the first day. I have had an amazing time. I spoke to so many people, but we're going back to the hotel now. Gonna get showered, freshen up for Cayman's VIP barbecue dinner. This one is one not to be missed. It's Thursday night at Nabi and I'm at the Beehive Barbecue. I finished all my food, which was very nice, so thank you Cayman for that one. I think I'm gonna go get myself a slice of cake and then go to bed because it is about 3 AM UK time and I've got my presentation tomorrow. Day 2 of NAB. It is 8:30 AM and I've been up since about 3 rehearsing my presentation. I did not mean to get up that early and I think I'll be quite tired come the end of the day. But I want to share one important thing that I learned from my last time that I came to NAB, which is if you're not giving stuff away for free, you are not doing it right. So I've bought loads of bits to give away for free. I've got 14 Day Beekeeper hats, 14 DBK, or as my little girl calls it, 14 Dubka. Lots of different hats as well. And then also I have brought some t-shirts. No one will have seen these before. Hive Q t-shirts with the new branding. And then I've also bought some 14 Day Beekeeper gilets. So I don't know who I'm going to give these to. I do know one person I'm going to give this to. Definitely for Diane, one of the 14 Day Beekeeper members I met from Alaska. Oscar, but the rest of them are up for grabs, and I'll spend the whole day today giving them out to people completely free just to say thank you for their support. So time to get ready. We're going to get a shuttle over to the expo today because it is hammering it down. I'm packing these up ready for day 2, and I'm really looking forward to it. So we came outside the hotel and we thought it was pouring down with rain, but look at that sun. It popped right through. So we took a little bit of a stroll down to the expo, and I think it was Zane's favorite part of the whole trip. We saw the coolest Tesla Cybertruck along with loads of other vehicles. That was a really nice stroll, Zane, but time to get back in the expo. We've got some work to do. I was just saying nice things about you as well.

Oh no.

Yeah, yeah, but it's very, very true. I can't believe how much like effort and work you put in. Smashed it, man. Thank you, appreciate it.

Thanks.

Well, all I was doing was a little bit of B-roll here, and I just asked nicely if I could do it here. I noticed the name, and then I saw it was your mum, so I was saying nice things. I was just—

funny quick story. So somebody came up, was like, hey, you spelled Laurence's name wrong.

Yeah.

I was like, I did?

So I like ran around and someone's like, oh no, there's another Laurence.

Yeah, yeah.

I said I have double R and I was like, oh no.

Oh man.

I've been walking around all day with the wrong name.

And I'm not joking yet, generally people get it wrong.

Okay.

So you got it right. Smashed it, man.

Perfect.

All right, you get your B-roll.

So one of the most important things for me is the next generation of beekeepers. How can we train them? How can we prepare them? And the Expo just does that so well. They get a free ride. The amount of money that goes into the next gen is phenomenal. And one of the ways that they fund it, they do it through sponsorships, but they also do it through the silent auction. That is where I'm heading now. I'm going to drop off a couple of 14-Day Beekeeper bits. But what it is, is that you put the bits on the table, and then what is amazing, people come, give really good money, We get a high five from Cayman, and that is it. We're going there now. Can we donate some bits for the silent auction? Is it too— is it— yeah, that's cool. Hey, can I just donate these for the silent auction, please?

Of course.

They are just 2 Fortinbay Beekeeper things. Like, $60?

$60.

That's like proper, that is. I wish I could fire a bit of it. I'm with Diane from Alaska, who is a member of 14 Day Beekeeper, and she's come all the way down here to the North American Honeybee Expo. She surprised me yesterday with the most amazing selection of gifts. I was, I was welling up a little bit showing my daughters on the phone this morning. Oh, it was so nice. It was the thought. It was like the little, the little book of Alaska for, for Lily and the little polar bears, and I'm like, it's so nice. So I was showing her it this morning, and she was like this, like looking at it. And Ivy will love her little kind of lip balm thing. And then, but you got something for my wife and something for me. It's very kind, so I really do appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

But we appreciate everything you do for us.

It's my pleasure, my pleasure. So today is Friday and it is the busiest day of the Expo by far. We thought we'd take advantage and get down here super early, and as we were walking down, we realised that we missed breakfast, and that is not what you want to do on the busiest day of the Expo. So I'm at the Honey Bar, we're going to go and taste some American honey, and I'm just going to fill up because I am very, very hungry. So that was very fun. Have you ever seen honey like that? Green swamp honey that actually tasted a little bit like alligator. Okay, it didn't taste like alligator. It was quite cool.

It was fun.

In all seriousness, I really enjoyed all of the honeys that I tasted there. Some of them are so similar to the UK, like that first one, really nice light colour, and I tasted it and immediately I could taste the lime. They don't call it lime over here, they call it basswood. So it was a high proportion of basswood in that honey, really nice and tasty. And then the darker ones, you have that medicinal antiseptic flavour. I have to say it's not 100% for me, I like the lighter honeys, but that green one, that's a revelation. I've never seen anything like that. And that's the kind of thing you get when you come to events like this. You get a taste of something you've never, ever seen before. Probably my highlight of NAB so far. I am with Kayleigh, who is absolute superstar, and she has got her book here, The Beekeeper's Apothecary, which is an incredible bible of some wonderful things. And I'm just going to hand over to Caley so you can give it a plug now. Go on, tell us about your amazing book.

Oh, well, I'm a beekeeper, obviously, but I'm also an herbalist. And so one of the things that I started to really understand was the connection between honeybees and herbs. And so when I, when I wrote the book, I wanted to write it in a way that really showed the benefit Of not what the herbs can do for our honeybees, but also for our health.

Right.

And so I have a background in medicine, and so when I wrote it, I wanted to break it down into systems of your body and explain like what herbs can you use for what. And then of course bringing in all the added benefits that the honeybees can offer. So you have your honey, you've got your propolis, you've got your wax, you've got your pollen, and the honeybees, They're the original herbalists.

Feels good, but look at the pictures in it. It's such a—

That's all from my apothecary. I just, I was able to really be a part of, I grow all the herbs and I wanted to feature them in a way that really shared their beauty and all how you can use them.

What I'm going to do with this book here, I'm obviously going to buy one, I'm going to get it signed, I'm going to take it back to the UK and I'm going to do some videos on some of the recipes. And on every one, I'm just going to say to people that they need to go and buy this book because it is absolutely awesome. We're back here at the Expo with Bruce and Brian.

How are you enjoying it this It's been really good. It's been great, as it always is.

Yeah, no, I love it this year. In, in prior years— I'm gonna back up— I've always come to the conference and I've worked at different booths, things like that. This year it's— I'm an attendee. I get to walk around. I get to see folks like you. Yeah, I get to meet just everybody. I get to buy some things. So I'm enjoying it this year in a whole different, like, So to say, view.

Isn't it strange how you enjoy things differently? When I came here 2 years ago, I remember being like a bit stressed out and trying to do— we were doing videos and doing all these things. And like, I loved it, I enjoyed it, but I didn't get the best out of it. And I got Zane here and I can just like chat and talk and it's all good. So what about you, Bruce? What are you here for?

Same this year. I'm not focusing on content creation this year. I'm focused more on just being an attendee, meeting people, going to some of the classes, buying stuff. Yeah, so it's been a little bit less stressful. Yeah, I don't feel like I have to be obligated to create content for videos. That's been really cool.

I'll see you next year.

Awesome.

Yeah, you good? The jewel in the crown of Nabi is the honey swap. Someone just told me, one of the volunteers, that it is the largest honey swap in the world. 5,500 jars. They come in packs of 12 like this. The volunteers take them all out, mix them up, You bring 12 of your own honey, but you go home with 12 random honeys from across America. I'm a little bit jealous that I've not got any honey to take home, but look at this. Look at the people working hard in the background. This is what sets Nardé apart. So this is cool. We've got Blake Shook, who is the owner of the biggest B company in the US, and Cayman Reynolds, a living legend himself, signing books. Look at that queue around there. You don't get that at little expos. You only get that at NAB. The biggest and the best. This is super cool. So, Cayman, we're back here. B-Expo 2026, bigger and better than any other year. What makes this event so amazing compared to the other expos that you've done?

Well, the trade show is bigger. The vendors have really gone all out, and so the trade show is super important to me. Like 50 semi-loads, and then also the North American Honey Bar, our new addition. And there's so many cool types of honey— the white Hawaiian honeys, of course my honey, which is the best, and then There's a couple other odds and ends, over 160 types. I gotta give credit to Apimondia because their global honey bar was really cool when we were there.

But the global honey bar at Apimondia didn't have swamp honey though. I've never seen anything like that. Luminous swamp honey. It was super cool. Cayman, thank you for the invite. I'm hoping to be back at some point in the future.

Honored to have you.

The time has come to go in and do my presentation, how to maximize honey yields without splitting your bees. I am still a little bit nervous, but fingers crossed it'll be Okay. So there we go, the end of day 2 is here. The presentation is out of the way, yes, but there is still so much to do, so many people to meet here at the expo. All I know is that I need some dinner. It is time to go and get the best brisket in the USA at the High 4 Heroes dinner. I am starving.

Let's go.

I've just finished my dinner at the Highs for Heroes barbecue, and that was without a doubt the best brisket I've ever eaten. But that was not the star of the show. Yaffy B-Man just auctioned off his 100,000 subscriber plaque, and it got $4,000 contribution. What an amazing feat! And Fred Dunn has also auctioned off one of his paintings. It's in there now, and it was up at around $3,500 just as we walked out. What an incredible contribution. Highs for Heroes barbecue dinner, you have Blown me away. That was something truly special. So we are on the shuttle going over to the expo, the beginning of day 3. Very cozy on the shuttle, I love it. Get to meet tons of people, talk about what's going on. Day 3 is nearly here, let's get to it. So I'm at the Expo Centre setting up for my final presentation at the B-Expo, which is how to use social media to boost sales. Dead awkward, this one. It's going to be really excruciating. in talking about it. Cayman asked me to do it. I'll do anything for Cayman. I'm a little bit nervous, I'm not going to lie, but as always, very, very excited. One of the most exciting things about the Expo is the honey show. Now, it's not just honey here, it's honey, it's pollen, it's frames, it's pictures, it's pretty much everything. People bring their honey, people bring their pictures, and they compete. They take it very, very seriously here, and you can see why. The quality of the exhibitions is outstanding. Just take a look at all of the different colors of honey that we've got here. You can go and taste a lot of these honeys in the honey bar as well. But what I love is going and seeing the little trinkets, the pictures, the inventions, all of the things that beekeepers have been working on throughout the year building up to this event to take it and for it to be judged. It is very special here. You cannot touch anything, taken very seriously. But this really is one of the coolest places. I'm going to show you around some of my top picks from the Honey Show. So this is where beekeeping gets serious. These here are little mini beeswax bars, and I'll be careful to touch them, but the idea here is to produce the very best, the most perfect selection. They have to be the right color, they have to be the same shape, and they're presented in a way that they are uniform. I really do like stuff like this, and I can see the attention to detail has gone in. Oh, and if you smell it, it is beautiful golden beeswax. So the problem that you get with a a lot of honey shows is that they're quite small. So you might get a category like this one here, which is honey condiments that are non-spicy, and maybe someone just puts one jar in and then they're the winner. But look at this— honey condiments non-spicy— and there's like 15 different entries. And it's the same across every category here. It's the whole of North America. Anyone who comes here can enter, so you get this amazing amount of diversity. I'm just looking at these ones here and I'm trying my best not to touch, but I actually want Gherkins. I want to take them home and eat them. How could I not stop at the cake section? Look at all of these cakes here. They look fantastic. And what I love is that you get the full recipe as well. So if you see a nice cake, you can take a picture of the recipe. But the attention to detail that goes in— look at this here, a honeycomb icing. Oh, I just want to eat this cake right now. So I love a bit of woodwork, and the category we've got here is woodcraft related to beekeeping. Someone has produced the most exceptional grafting frame stand I have ever seen. But what's so nice about it is that it comes with this big story. It's an old piano that they've taken apart and reconstructed for a purpose-built grafting frame. It won first place. I can see why. I want it. I am going to try and buy it, and I know I'm not going to be able to get it, so we'll probably get someone to make me one of these. I feel very inspired. So final stop at the Honey Show, I'm at the lip balm section, and I kind of want to try them all again. But what I love, and I think is really, really nice here, is you've got the winners, they get a ribbon, and they obviously get all the accolades and stuff. But even if you don't win, you get this detailed feedback from like the most experienced judges probably in the world, but definitely in North America. So you get something very valuable. You can take it back, you can maybe refine the recipe for next year, hopefully come back and win one of those coveted ribbons. So this is the Roller Uncapper from Hillco. I've seen a few different iterations of this and it is pretty cool, but this one here is electrified, it's automated. So instead of just kind of pushing the frame through, all of those riving knives there will spin. And the idea here is that you do not remove the wax. So you don't get the benefit of having the wax and making beeswax, but for some people that's really neat. That cleans everything up. You don't have to filter your honey as much, and these are very, very effective. I see a lot of people using them. For me though, I love my wax and I like to produce lots of foundation with it. So maybe not for me this one, but for backyard beekeepers, hobbyists, this is a very cool tool. So I said this last time I was here, but at the expo loads of things are for free. So I've just walked past these very cool yellow veils and they are free. They're provided by Hillco. I think I'm probably going to have to try one on now, aren't I? Yeah, I love it. That's pretty cool, isn't it? You don't see many little mini veils like that. I love the squareness of it. I love the fact I've not got to put a big bee suit on. I'm going to take this one home. You will see it in my apiary. So I'm here at the expo at Hilco with the main man, John, who has got the coolest invention— spring dampeners that go on the bottom of the honey extractor so you eliminate all of your balancing issues. John, they are awesome.

Good to see you. Good to see you, man.

Tell me about the expo. What have you got here? What's new? What is brilliant for 2026?

Yeah, yeah, bigger, badder, and bolder booth than ever, Laurence. We got 4,200 square feet. Now, I don't know what that is in meters for you, you Brits, but anyway, anyway, yeah, big booth. So yeah, the Spring Feet have been the talk of this place, really, honestly. We launched those this past summer. They have been an amazing, amazing hit. You know, they're just a simple product, but people use the words like game-changing, like revolutionary, and it's really What it is, and it just, it's just an amazing thing for people. So what it does is just takes all the wobble, all the shake out of your extractor. As long as you got a full load of frames or halfway balanced in there, you can crank that thing up to full speed right away and it starts slinging honey out. So not only does it reduce the wobble, reduce you having to lay on the extractor to hold it down, it also dramatically increases your extracting time— reduces your extracting time because you can speed it up so much faster.

Awesome, John, great to see you.

Hey, good to see you, Lawrence. Yeah, thanks, man.

Have you ever had a problem where there is a huge swarm? You want that swarm, but it is just too high up in the tree. Up until now, there really wasn't any way to do it other than trying to lean a ladder on it, something super, super dangerous.

Hi, this is our Swarm Reacher, and you just hook it onto any extension pole, window washing pole, a painter's pole. You hook it on the frame, you can hook it on the top, you can hook it on the side, you can hook it on the bottom. If you have some brood comb, you stick it right into the swarm. What we found is if you just take the frame with some comb and put honey on it, you put some fresh honey on it and you stick it in, you'll have the queen coming right on down the pole. All you have to do is get an extension pole that'll keep going up, and you do not have to get on a ladder, and it'll go right on up to So I want to say Lance, but you can't say that because I'm in the US.

So I am with Lance Reynolds, who is?

Cayman Reynolds.

You must be so proud of your son. Give me a handshake there.

Very, very proud of him. He does it, he works hard all year long.

He really does, doesn't he? But everyone blows smoke up Cameron's ass because he's so cool. Let's just embarrass him a little bit. Go on, tell me something embarrassing, maybe like one of the stressful things that he wouldn't want people to know about for this expo, innit?

Well, I mean, he gets stressed out about a lot of things, but mainly this event center. You know, there's a lot to do with the event center, and so having to deal with all the event people, getting them coordinated and getting everything, everybody in. It's just, it's tough. And so he has a lot of calls that are sort of fun sometimes, and so he has to deal with that a lot. But he handles it pretty well. But, you know, he has his days. He has his days. But he's pretty level-key most days.

He really is. I tell you what, if anybody asks me that question about my kids when I'm older, I'm gonna destroy them. You've been way too kind on him there. It's like, it's a backhanded one, isn't it? He's He's very, very good, and I just can't get over the scale of this event. How does he even manage? Is it just chaos?

It is. Well, for— yeah, it's a year-long thing. I mean, him and Laurel are just doing, working on this every day, it seems like, something, you know. And they're making calls all the time, and they're just dealing with vendors and people all the time. And so, and they're trying, just like the Honey Bar, they're trying to make things better every year, just adding little things. So it's— he does what he can. But, you know, Cayman I think he seizes up at the end of the year. That's the reason why his voice always goes out.

I know.

I have to say, I got a bit nervous, you know, like with the presentations and stuff. And for me, that Christmas period, if I'm coming to NAB, I'm a bit like, oh, what's going on? Does he have that, or does he just switch off?

No.

Well, we have to really tone him down a lot of times because he's on the phone all the time. And so we gotta say, hey, this is Christmas, take a step back. And he did this year. He did really good this year. We didn't have get on him too much and tell him to put his phone away. So it's— he did pretty good this year.

Well, I won't keep you too long, Lawrence. Thanks for having us here.

Appreciate it, Lawrence.

Really pretty, man.

Thank you.

So my cages have been really popular, and a lot of my customers have said, you know, why don't you make a banker? So I make a banker, and most of my work is done with Langstroth, but I have a production partner in the UK now, Broadsby, and we're working to develop national-sized equipment to go with the cage system. And here is the very first national 24 banker for you.

There you go.

That is so cool.

Thank you so much.

You're quite welcome.

Is this your dad?

Yes. I'm just saying when he starts his YouTube channel, drop me an email. Yeah, and I'll share a couple of videos for you. Get you started, innit? Yeah, yeah, no worries, man. M H. So you know who it is. Here we go. Nice one.

Cheers, man.

He wants to start his own YouTube now.

So oh, I just said to this guy here, do it. Start your own YouTube channel. Yeah, email me your videos and I'll share a couple for you. Get going, innit?

All right.

Definitely do it, man.

There you go.

I messed that right up at the beginning, didn't I? Do you want me to write my name? I think it's nice just like that, innit? You know who it is. Or I can just write— What do you want to do? This is a 14-day signature.

Okay.

Look at this.

Oh man, look at this.

I'm gonna come over to Jason now, and he's gonna show you why the Queen White Dial is one of the coolest So the queen right dial has made a lot of improvements over the last year.

In 2026, we're actually injection molding the product now, so it's 3 times UV, will last a lot longer than the 3D printing we were doing years past. We added some more information to the dial as well. So when you dial it in, you're screwing this to the hive, it can sit anywhere on the hive, and you can decide whether you have swarm cells, supersedure cells, whether you have no queen, virgin queen. Over here, your inspection, your treat, your feed, and Feed, your queen. So you can see add space, harvest, or maybe you need to treat and feed. It's just the next generation of the queen right now, so we're really excited to bring that to market to the audience, the beekeeping audience here at NABI this year.

I'm here with Debbie, who is Cayman Reynolds' mum, and she is head of the NABI Next Generation program, which is a phenomenal program that brings in so many young beekeepers into this event, give them a completely free ride, and set them up for some success in beekeeping. So Debbie, pleasure to be here again. Tell me all about the NABI Next Gen program.

Yeah, so it's, uh, ages 10 to 20, and, uh, we had 59 this year. It's grown every year. Last year we had 40, and they have to send in a video of their beekeeping journey, what they would like to learn from this Expo. They have very little to do with a single out Next Gen class. What they do is them and their guardian get to experience all of the Expo.

Yeah, it's brilliant. I've seen so many of them milling around and like the look on their faces, they're just like Oh my God, this is brilliant, isn't it? And oh, I would love to see and track like their journeys. Do you do any of that? Do you see kind of like where they progress to?

So Curtis, who I just had video me, was one of our Next Gen probably 4 years ago. And so then to see, I get emails from people. Cayman has had people actually come up to him, or some of our people who have gifted gifts to our Next Gen have had them send pictures of them in their apiary with their whatever they gave them. And so it's been really cool to see that.

It's so nice. Yeah, and you don't see many people doing that. You don't see many people like Cayman giving back so much and having that focus on the next generation. They kind of think, well, let's deal, let's deal with our own generation, and it's the wrong attitude. And I just think Cayman's got it right, and he's got the whole Reynolds family involved. So it is brilliant. You must be so proud of him.

Yes, we, we are. And Laurel as well, of course. Um, so one of the reasons why Cayman loves this program so much is at 14 when he started beekeeping, he didn't— we didn't— no one in our family were beekeepers, and then he didn't have a mentor, and so he had failed quite a bit. And so he really wants to encourage young people to not give up and to find people who can help them learn.

Yeah, he's brilliant. I was gonna get Debbie to say something embarrassing about Cayman, but I feel bad doing that now. So say something nice about Cayman, go on, say something lovely about him.

I can just tell you one thing is Cayman started reading at a very young age, and he would go and get books at the library that were so thick and he would read them. And he was just never— whatever he was interested in, he wanted to learn 100% of what he could of it. And so I think that's how he never stops learning. And, and just, uh, he didn't plan on this being this big.

No.

4,000 people-ish. And the first one was 250.

Oh my goodness.

So, uh, you know, it's just, uh, he didn't plan on that, but it was just He just doesn't stop learning and trying to do better.

And you can really see that. Like when we were doing the little chat with Cayman over there, he was saying that he was inspired when he went to Apimondia about the honey bar. He thought we could do it in America. And I'm just like, wow, that is cool.

We thought we were done planning with a lot of things until he went to Apimondia and then he comes back and he's like, we have to do this.

How busy was that? And how much fun was it? I was there tasting all the different bits. Like that's going to be there every single year, isn't it?

It was a very high I think it was very successful.

Yeah, it was really cool. Well, Debbie, thank you so much for everything you do. It's a pleasure.

It's great seeing you.

So it is the end of day 3 here at the expo. All of the exhibitors are taking down the stands. People are going away with some crazy hauls of stuff, me included. There's still a little bit to go though. We need to pack everything down, say goodbye to some special people along the way. But oh my goodness, NAB Expo 2026, it has been a crazy, crazy ride. So walking back from the expo on day 3, and it is freezing cold. And what's really crazy is that yesterday we were sitting outside and we couldn't believe how warm it was. It was like 21, 22 degrees. I was sitting there getting a suntan. 24 hours later, it is freezing, it is windy, my hair is a mess. But I'm on my way back to the hotel. The expo is nearly over, just a couple more things that are left to do. So we've seen so many American cars, American pickup Oh my God, they have got some amazing vehicles here, but this is my number one favorite— the Ford Bronco Raptor. How ridiculously cool is this? I'm gonna look to see if we can import one into the UK. They're not available, we'd have to do a conversion, but definitely this is the number one car I've seen here. I want this at home. Oh my God, I want this one so much. So we're back in the room and I have got a mega haul of things to take home. There's so many things available at the expo that are just not available in the UK, but definitely not available in the UK yet. So it's so nice coming over here, seeing the new innovations and playing with them and testing them, and then actually taking them home. So one of the ones that I've got here is a foot that you mount your extractor on, and then it will stop the wobble. What a brilliant idea! I absolutely love that. Another thing that I'm super excited about is the Beekeeper's Apothecary. Got it right this time. But this is just a fantastic book about how to become a herbalist, which maybe you think has got nothing to do with beekeeping, but it has everything to do with beekeeping because all of the products that are used in here are bound together by a lot of those hive products like beeswax and propolis and royal jelly. And just look how nice it's designed. This book is going to get loads and loads of attention when I get home. Probably going to read it on the plane back as well. Now my wife tells me that I have a problem that when I like I see something that I like, I can't just buy one of them. And the same thing's happened with these hats here. So I've got a green one, I've got a gray one, I've got a beige one, I've got a purple one. So one for each member of my family. But these hats are really cool. One of the best things about America is that everybody's head size is just slightly bigger. If I'm in the UK, hats don't fit me. If I'm in the US, everything fits me. It's really, really good. I love these hats. But there's one person that I definitely cannot miss out from this section in the video. Diane Hughes, who is a member of 14 Day Beekeeper, one of the first members actually, who lives in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. We were talking a little bit before I came out here and she said she was really excited to meet me at the expo, and I was equally excited to meet her, but I was not prepared for the incredible generosity that she showed. This little moose here was given to me by Diane and it's for my daughter Lily, but she gave me so many other things. She gave me a wonderful book about Alaska. She gave me a small reading book for Lily as well. She made me some homemade sting balm for when I get stung in the face, and she even bought me some special organic soap for my wife because she knows that she loves that kind of thing. Diane, if you're watching this, thank you so much. It was a real pleasure meeting you, and thank you for your support. Now, one of the things that I felt terrible about in 2024 was taking a mobile grafting station from Apis Engineering. They gave it to me for free, and I said I'll do a cool video on it. And I'll be completely honest, I brought it home, I put it into storage, and I lost it. I felt so, so bad. But I did find it eventually, and that video will be released now, so I'll stick it up in the top corner. It's a super cool video. But I came back this year and I bought a new different version here, which is a grafting stand. Fully flexible, fully adjustable, made out of aircraft-grade aluminium. This is going to see so much action in my apiary. And obviously you've got that Acorn pink frames here that slot straight in, but any Langstroth frame will do. Can you imagine how handy that's going to be if I'm doing a demonstration or talking about the bees on a frame and I can just pop it up there in the apiary and show people what's going on? Dale, shout out to you. Thank you so much for your trust in me, and I'm so sorry it took that long. So this is when you know that something is really good. In 2024, I bought this wash bag made out of buffalo leather, and it really is one of my prized possessions. So when I came back In 2026, I had to get myself another couple of these along with so many more things. I literally don't have the time because we're just about to catch a flight to go through all of them. But believe me, my suitcase is full. Anybody who's given me anything, thank you so much. Your generosity is amazing and I cannot wait to get home, play with them, get them out in the apiary and just have some fun. Thank you so, so much. The day after the night before, and I'm with Chris Madaras, who is the COO of the BEE Expo. Chris, first up, thank you for the invite.

Thank you, of course.

How do you think the expo went?

It went great. We're blessed to have so many beekeepers all in one spot from all over the world. The word is out, and we continue to get more and more people here. We were about 20% up this year in attendance. Man, almost 30 new vendors this year. So I think it's time to get bigger.

Yeah.

Well, it's crazy because I came here a couple of years ago and the difference from 2024 through to 2026 was like, wow. Some of my personal favorites, the honey tasting bar. I tasted swamp honey for the first ever time. But what were your highlights of 2026?

Man, the honey bar is awesome. So came and went to Copenhagen this year, saw it, took a little influence there, but we were really able to get a lot of new faces. It's difficult to find people who are great speakers and very knowledgeable, and so we were able to kind of crack into that this year, and I think we really found some great new leads and new avenues that we can explore.

Yeah, tell us about some of the challenges though, because I tried to shoot this video like 4 or 5 times and Chris was just like, no, it's not happening, because there's loads of stuff that goes on going.

Some of the challenges. Sure, yeah, I mean, things you never think about, you know. There's a young child lost his dad yesterday, and, you know, all good happened, good ending. Dad was right there, we were able to find him. But just the larger the expo, you know, those kind of things happen. Vendors whose trucks break down, shipments lost, you know, contract negotiations with hotels and the expo and the food. And so all those things just continue. The larger you get, the larger those things get as well. So they're not problems, they're challenges to overcome, and it's just something that our team just continues to thrive on.

So yeah, so it gets bigger and better every year.

Yes.

You got anything in line for 2027?

Something?

Yeah, yeah, like I just kind of hinted, I think we're— I think we have to go bigger. I think we have to. So yeah, more space, more people, more opportunities for more hands-on things. You know, YouTube exists, we know that, but we think that hands-on hands-on kind of stuff and being able to meet your idols such as yourself. You know, those are the cool things that people look forward to. So we want to be able to expand upon that next year.

Awesome. Well, I can hear your voices going. You must have done a huge amount of talking. Chris, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for coming.

Cheers. And just like that, the B-Expo 2026 is over. So, Cayman, how'd it go?

Well, it went really good. You know, there's always a couple of things. It's a conference and you have thousands of people. So There's like 4,200 total people, and the way I've had to rationalize it to myself is if you have 3 days of 4,200 people, that's over 12,000 days. And if out of 12,000 days of your life, if you had maybe an event or 2 happen during that time, like a tire go flat or—

Yeah.

You got sick or something like that. So that's what we get to experience on the back end. Someone has a bad day, unfortunately. We hate that it happens at the BXPO, but my The way my team and I see it, the main thing we want to do is help those people as much as possible, and of course just let the rest of the folks not even know it ever happened. So what happens behind the scenes stays with the staff.

Yeah, well, I think it came across pretty much seamless. Like, I know things will happen, but you managed it. Chris managed it really well. He's doing it now again, but it's good that it's being managed like that. Some thank-yous. Is there anyone you want to kind of give like a shout out to? Got Chris in the background there. He's like saying, come on, me, me, me.

Oh yeah, no, no, you know, Chris is super humble, but Chris is on the top of the list of people to thank for sure. You know, Chris has been with us since the second year, and he started by guarding the doors. He just wanted to volunteer and say, hey, I'd like to be a part of this machine. And we didn't know what we were getting into, and he's just been a blessing by increasing amounts each year. And of course, now he's with us full-time, and it's, it's the My first employee, I don't even feel like that's the right word because we're really good friends and he's so passionate about the Bee Expo and the mission that we have. He's just, he's really, it's a team thing. It's really not an employer-employee thing. That's just the paperwork, I suppose.

Yeah.

So Chris is right there at the top. Of course, Laurel, who does so much stuff on the back end where she is just handling a lot of questions, handling a lot of the info booth and finding, you know, people lose their phones at these events and they, you know, poor things are freaking out. And thankfully we've been able to help some people find them. So she deals with a lot of that stuff. So my staff is awesome. Our vendors are awesome. Our speakers are awesome. Thanks to people like you, we had a lot of people come from Europe. Did you see the map of all of the pins from Europe?

I did.

That was the best European showing that we've had. And so Really thankful for the folks that travel to our show and are bringing a new style of beekeeping to the American scene. And we had a lot of Canadians and a lot of great Canadian companies. So there's so many people to thank. We have great vendors, the people who are innovating, the people who are bringing more to the show each year and are investing into our show. I see you guys making money. I see you guys doing well, and I'm so thankful that you're being rewarded for that effort because it's making our show better and it's good for the bee industry. So there's just so much I can be thankful for.

It's, it's amazing to see the growth of it, and it feels really nice, like, to be a small part of it as well. But the thing that's really taken us by surprise is just the enthusiasm and the kindness and generosity from everyone. Like, people want to stop and they want to say thanks and they appreciate the hard work. And I'm sure they've been doing that to you kind of like the whole way through the event. But we were talking to Chris earlier about like plans for the future, you're very much someone who wants to kind of continue improving. So go on, give me one little snippet of something that we might get in 2027.

One little snippet? Gosh, we don't think in snippets, Laurence.

Go on then, you know, big ticket, go.

World domination. World domination, I love it. I don't know, you know, we adjusted with the North American Honey Bar within about a month and a half to 2 months. I want to say a big thank you to Paula Messer and her husband Eric and Chris's grandparents for helping really bring that about. And also the KSBA and Zach Medeiros. That was a very popular addition. So we want to be flexible because you just never know when inspiration might happen, or you learn from like Appamondia. So as far as things that we want to do, we want to have more workshop opportunities. We want to expand the time. We just got to figure out these logistics on how we can How can we make this make sense for everybody? And we really want to get more people in that are younger. FFA, 4-H groups, that's something we have over here in the US, and there's just tens of thousands of teenagers and young kids that are already interested in agriculture and some of them already into bees. We want to find a way to get them in the door for nothing and to keep them into beekeeping or get them into beekeeping. So really want to target that youth and that vigor because just like with bees, you got to have young bees, you got to have healthy growth and new growth and young queens. And so we got to get those into the show. So that's a big target, is getting more youth involved.

You definitely do. I think I'm going to leave that with Cayman. Cayman, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for the invite.

Thank you for coming so much. It's been a pleasure every time.

Good man.

One of my favorite things at the Expo this year was the sheer amount of people that came up to me to talk, to chat, to get pictures. And luckily I had Zane with me this year, which was brilliant. It meant that I could talk, I could engage with the community, and even better than that, it meant that Zane could get some pictures of me with people who wanted to come and talk. So I've just gone back through and looked, and we have got so many pictures, it is absolutely crazy. So what I'm going to do is this: we're going to get home, edit up all of those pictures, we're going to put it on our website and we're going to let you go in and download them for free. There's going to be 2 charities on that page, Hi4Heroes and the NextGen Programme. And if you want to donate to either of those 2 brilliant causes, please do feel free. But don't worry, all of the pictures are free. They're super high quality, top resolution. I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for coming up, engaging, getting your picture taken. I really do appreciate it.

Thank you.