It's the end of January 2015! New year resolutions all broken by now or still working! It's a long month and imagine that it's almost over! Kick start the year today!

We are so excited about 2015!
Our new products are frame spacers, stainless steel honeygate taps, electric bee smokers, honey splash bars or honey dippers and queen clips! 

What happens with courses? 
We are lining up our Training Calendar for the next few months!   

We do run Easy Buzzing Bee courses monthly and our next Bee Course Dates are 28th FEB & 28th March. 

Bee Courses have a max so please don't delay your payment & booking. We are only able to accommodate 14 people per course in Midrand. Fees are now R850 pp with R100 for the bee suit rental.
              
Let's talk bees!     
Bees are keen to build, forage and harvest pollen and nectar. This time of year honeybees will look at sunflowers in northern parts of South Africa. Did you know SA is the world's 10th largest producer of sunflower seeds?

Our research shows that as long as GMO cultivars that are bee-friendly or, better yet, GMO-free seeds are used in planting, the flowering season is roughly 3 weeks or about 20 days.

For pollination purposes, the ratio of bee colonies to hectares required is a minimum of four bee colonies or 4:1. Research from both the Blue Book - a South African beekeeping book - as well as Australian resources show evidence of increase in seed yields of 65% when honeybees are used to aid seed production.

Regardless of where you live in the world there will be agricultural crops being grown for human and animal consumption. We have honeybees looking for exactly this kind of crop - the sunflower!

Recent experience has indicated that nectar flows have been lower than average on sunflower crops in some areas of South Africa however this could be due to weather conditions, type of cultivar planted and pesticides being used on the farm.

Prior to GMO seeds and hybrids sunflower crops flowered for over 5 weeks. This has now declined to about 3 weeks. Nonetheless, the sunflower makes an excellent seed pollination contract crop for beekeepers.

Why not for honey production?

It's usual for people to make a mistake thinking that all nectar is made equal. Sunflower nectar flows should be good if you are not pollinating for seed ,that is, only placing one hive per hectare and not charging a fee with at least one super chamber being filled during the 3-weeks. (Pollination however will leave bees starving with 4:1 ration so farmers compensate beekeepers that will get no honey with money.)

The downside of using sunflower as a nectar source is that the honey produced from it has a very quick granulating period. It can literally be as short a period as three weeks following your harvest.

This fact of a short granulising period makes bottling & retailing the honey before it granulates a challenge!

Honey that granulates

Honey is the only food stuff on the planet that preserves itself! It is the natural process honey takes to form crystals that bind together which is what we see as the honey getting thick and granular. All honey can do this no matter which honey it is or what nectar source it was harvested from. 

The honey in shops doesn't do this because it is heat-treated, cooked, to at least 65 degrees for a few minutes before being cooled rapidly. This process breaks the natural crystal structure that would otherwise cause the process of self preservation in the honey so it can never granulate again. 

This process can damage good enzymes and benefits of honey so check if your honey labels mention any of the following terms: heated, irradiated, treated. Look for words & instruction such as raw, natural & caution notices advising that "this honey may crystallise so place it in a warm container to make it liquid again."    

Bee WARE RETAIL open in Centurion from 09h00 -16h00 weekdays. Sat 09h00 - 12h30.

We do close for lunch at 13h00-14h00 weekdays!