| | | Start Beekeeping with us!
| | | | | Bees are now producing around 1500-2000 eggs a day as the queen bee goes into full laying mode. If your bees have quality sources of nectar & pollen at this point they can be at honey production levels by middle of January.
Ensure you have hotspots like avo, litchi, macadamia, lemon, citrus, blue gum, sunflower, onion, borage, lavender and more lined up for making honey or pollination.
Upcoming Crops
~ Cosmos ~ Cosmos is starting to blossom now. Cosmos makes a fantastic light coloured honey although it is not generally pure. By that I mean that it is not usually harvested as a single nectar flow as it is not that a strong nectar quality as other potential contenders in the area it blooms.
If you do happen to live near to a vast Cosmos field of 30-100ha then you can seriously produce single crop honey from Cosmos.
~ Sunflower ~ If you are in the North West province or Limpopo province, the sunflower crops begin flowering in the next few days. Take advantage by placing catch boxes, hives and or consider pollination deals.
Remember, there are different means of using bees and sunflowers together. Sunflower blossoms at different times in different provinces so ask a local farmer while planning this out.
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| | | Honey flow can come from numerous sources and right now it's from sunflower (NW) & Cosmos about now...
P.S. Bees are much more inclined to trek or relocate from areas with low food sources to those with high food sources!
The simple way to make your best chance of catching or luring a bee swarm into your catch boxes or brood boxes is place them in high quality food source apiary sites That are blossoming now! Read on for details!
The Year of the BEEs ~ 2017!
With honeybees coming under pressure from every direction we propose a year of the bees for 2017! All things bee related and how we can help them out while helping ourselves as their caretakers out will be the focus for newsletters going forward for the year.
We've got a number of topics to cover - Pesticides - neonicotinoid, GMOs and spraying
- Bee husbandry - the highs, lows and risks & rewards
- Bee tools & how to use them & why
- Bee industry - what's happening, when, why and how it effects you
- Bee plants - flowering times, what to grow yourself & what to focus on
- Bee management
- Capensis Pest Control and Risks
- Bee courses and training
- Tips on beekeeping, honey and other related niche products
- Queen making kits - make queen bees with queen cells, grafting tools & cages
Discover the Bee-Friendly flowers, crops and plants that beekeepers should focus on this month in January for next flows:
Cosmos Sunflower - NW, Limpopo
Recommendations: Even if you aren't able to take full advantage of these blossoming trees and plants now, plant some of them this year so they can be ready next year or a few years from now.
Plant now for the future and help give bees food for life.
Updates: We have new stock of beehives, bee smokers & much more!
What else can you do? - Come on a bee course to start beekeeping now!
- This is the best time of year in the southern hemisphere to start keeping bees...
- Set up pollination contracts for crops and fruit growers.
- Generally, crops and fruit orchards require varying ratios of hives to hectare > a rough average is at least 3 hives per hectare
- Pollination rates in SA vary too from R350-R500 per hive per 10 day period or thereabouts. {No honey is produced when pollinating}
- If you do splits of colonies make sure they are fed with sugar water or old honey for at least a week.
- Use extra queen bee cells to propagate multiple new colonies at the same time as long as you have enough brood and worker bees to share amongst the new colonies and feed the bees. Use only catch boxes for this and provide at least one brood frame of eggs, one of sealed brood and one of nectar for each new queen.
- Queen cell cups and grafting tool set for sale
Our next Easy Buzzing Beekeeping Course is on 15 January in Midrand. (February Date is on the 5th)
This course will be facilitated by Cillene & Martin with practical hive session after lunch. |
| | | For anyone who is about to start beekeeping here's some things to consider:- It's really awesome working with bees
- It's scary working with bees
- But it's honestly amazing!
- Care for them and they provide honey, wax and other products of the hive
- A starter kit is R3315 all-in! Big discount!
- A bee course is R850
- You kuier lekker met die Bye!
So treat your hubby, loved one or friend with a beekeeping gift today! |
| | | | Got a farm and growing crops? Bees can pollinate your crops and usually contribute to more than 50% of the pollination of most crops over and above that of butterflies and flies.
We will be posting to FaceBook the actual pollination effects bees will have on crops in South Africa and elsewhere over the next week. Be sure to visit our FaceBook page for that info.
Here's a challenge: Which crop enjoys 300% increase in yields when 2x hives per hectare are utilised when flowering takes place? |
| | | | Can you spot her? The queen bee [above] is the only fertile female in the Scutellata colony and therefore the only bee that can properly lay eggs of either male or female workers. |
| | Online Bee Store!
The Centurion Shop is open for business Monday- Friday 9:00-16:00 and on Sat 09:00 - 12:00!
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| | | | Amazing beautiful hand poured pure beeswax candles available online & in-store in Centurion!
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| | | | | | Keep reading articles, bee books | | | | | Over the course of the next 6 weeks we will be sending you tips, articles and news about beekeeping that will help you to better understand the benefits of bees for all of us! | | We will be sending you tips, articles and news about beekeeping that will help you to better understand the benefits of bees for all of us!Our recommended first steps are that you get hold of the blue book, Beekeeping in South Africa which is available on our website by mail order or if you collect in Centurion. Southern Hemisphere: Work on getting The SUMMER CROPS upon us all!
Focus on finding apiary sites that are rich in nectar flow and pollen. Preferably nectar for honey with medium pollen.
Cosmos & Sunflower is flowering in NW, Limpopo and roundabout.
Make sure your hives are above ground so that when the heavy rains that we have experienced in Gauteng and surrounds come that your bee hives don't get flooded.
Purchase extra supers if you are producing honey ie no pollinating. The bees will very quickly fill a super during the spring & summer and will need harvesting and a second super can be added in the meantime while removing and extracting honey.
Northern Hemisphere: The bees will NOT venture out. With temps below 13 degrees celsius bees flight muscles cannot physically move and will seize up if they tried to take to the sky.
With the morning and day time temperature below 10 degrees bees will not leave the hive as their wing muscles are unable to sustain flight once the temperature goes below 12 degrees celsius.
Sugar water can be used to feed the bees and supplement their diet over the cold winter days and nights. However, use only white sugar as brown tends to ferment quicker and give the bees gastro. They can die from this.
Feed the bees with sugar water. Use a pillow or newspaper to create insulation inside an empty super chamber or honey box with no frames in really cold climate regions going below zero.
Ask Questions & Visit our site to get info on bees, equipment and like us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | Love bees but cannot make the bee course to get started? Get our Bee Book called Beekeeping in South Africa for R360! | | | Watch our bee videos on keeping bees, harvesting honey and bee info | | | |
Online Deal! Our Manual 4-Frame honey extractor ONLY R4250! Order [sold out]
January Deal!Our 6-frame honey extractors ONLY R7500! Order [7 units] 3- Frame extractorsAvailable for R3,500
8-frame extractors Extract for R11,500 Electric, Reversible includes honeygate tap
12-Frame Extractor Selling for R15,000 Electric & Reversible Programmable includes honeygate tap
20-frame extractor Electric, reversible Programmable! includes honeygate tap R27,000
24-frame EXTRACTOR R32,000
Online Deal!
Our Langstroth bee hives ONLY R900!
Order [83 units]
BeeSuits with detachable veil Medium to 3XL size R1100 each *gloves sold separate
Bee Smokers Dome and Cone shaped Leather bellow R360
Hive tools
S/steel R70
Uncapping knives
Please note that prices have increased in October 2016!
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