This is what a typical front page of our catalogue looked like. Each year was signified by colouration of the front page itself in the same colour as would be valid for queen marking in that particular year.
This page will not reproduce an entire catalogue as it is no longer valid. The business went bankrupt in July 1995 and is never likely to be resurrected (although I do retain title to the APEX Enterprises brand name). Short extracts from various years catalogues will be published here as a reference source to some of the other pages. In most cases the pricing information will be left out as it is not relevant to the present day.
Apart from some early examples that were only four or eight pages, there were usually sixteen pages of very close spaced type. I will reproduce one complete page in its entirety to indicate the breadth of range and the attention to detail.
The catalogue was not sophisticated or coloured and there were only a handful of illustrations. It did however give beekeepers a choice of quality and type. For instance the pricing headings reproduced below are from the page dealing with National Hive Parts:-
| CEDAR | CEDAR | PINE | PINE | PLY & | 2nds | 2nds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MADE | IN | MADE | IN | PINE | MADE | IN |
| UP | FLAT | UP | FLAT | M/U | UP | FLAT |
In 1988 there were eleven different types of National stand offered in these categories and fourteen types of National floor (and none of them was "Open Mesh"!).
Page created pre-2011