Bee season is ON! Are you ready Friend?

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Subject: Bee season is ON! Are you ready Friend?

Keeping Bees

making honey

Bee Season is on!

We recently did apiary work at 3 of our honeybee sites:

Apiary #1: Farm in Muldersdrift with small peach orchard just about to start blossoming. Loads of trees in neighbourhood. We transferred 2 wild swarms - 1 in a fruit box and the other in a tyre stack - into our beehives and gave them sugar water to get them strong for the spring nectar flow.

What a great opportunity to get free bees! We placed loads of trap boxes high up on sheds and container rooves and baited the honey bee boxes.

Naturally Honeybee Splitting

Apiary #2: Out in Mpumalanga we visited the new apiary site there and to our delight found 3 new swarms had colonised our trap hives. We even split a bee hive swarm while we were up there. Naturally, stronger honeybee colonies will tend to prepare to split now.

Please ensure you actively inspect your beehives NOW to avoid losing part of your swarm to splitting. Rather use any queen cells to make new honey bee colonies. You can read more about this in the Honeybee Colony Creator Mini Report. We found the queen bee while splitting the bee hive!

At all of the apiary sites, we have been active in making sure the brush and debri is cut and cleared away to avoid losses due to fire. Also, it is important to keep snakes from making home under your beehive too.

Servicing Bee hives now!

Apiary #3: A smallholding in Muldersdrift with wild flora and trees on site. Old honeybee hives not serviced and partially burnt needed serious servicing! I even found a spider with black and red colouring inside the hive with its web across a frame.

Loads of propolis on the propolis trap which is a fair sign of a strong colony. Could not find the queen bee however but tiny eggs were present which means she is about and laying.

Many hive beetles present on these two old bee hives which is due to the swarms being a) small in the one hive and b) the other hive has wholes everywhere...

Maintenance is vital this time of year! Check on all frames in the brood so the queen has enough new space to lay eggs. Make sure bee hives are in good working condition.

Keeping Bees Business Solutions

Now the contract at BHP Billiton has come to an end. The shop is now open from 10h00 until 17h00 during the week. But please ring before you come to check on availability of stock.

Check our Bee course video demo

Speak to farmers that own land about placing your bee hives there. Great relationships can be forged by working together - the farmer gets better pollination and you get more bee sites which means more honey.

Be sure to have some documents signed up about permission, injury and so on...

Want to start beekeeping? As keeping bees is a seasonal agricultural activity it is VITAL to get the best results possible that you focus RIGHT NOW on setting up your beekeeping operation as beginner or commercial bee farmer.

Don't miss out on the next bee course as it is smack in the middle of the peak of the bee season in the highveld.


Contact us

Bee Ware 25 Glen Carlou, Bradford Str, Centurion info@beeware.co.za www.beeware.co.za	Phone: 082 359 8787	Fax: 086 50 33 055

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Subject: Bee season is ON! Are you ready Friend?