| | | 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 September.
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. |
| | With the Aloes about to finish and spring on the cusp the swarms of bees trekking across the veld and wilderness!
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. Read on for details!
The bees are HERE - Start now!
With no time at all honeybees are arriving everyday at our apiaries! - All the honeybee colonies over the winter are building up fast!
- Look for early flowering plants and sources of food - that's where the bees will trek towards!
- Make sure you place catch boxes about 1.5m-2m high.
- Face the entrance to the East
- Remove any entrance blockers to allow fast entry upon arrival; replace entrance blocker within a few days.
- Use Swarm Lures on the inside of catch boxes or brood chambers (without supers)
- Using old or abandoned frames help to lure scout bees easier
What's the task list for Spring? - Find sites. Blue gum, sunflower, lavender, citrus, macadamia, avo, litchi and lemon are key sources of honey & pollination
- Prepare fire breaks and ensure fire hazards are removed from your apiary site
- Prepare for splits if you want to increase your apiary size
- Prepare for extra supers if you want to produce honey on a production-ready brood - 8 frames or more
- Pollination service: contacting farmers and discussing costs, risks, insurance, liability and contract terms.
- Bear in mind, Pollination requires over saturation of bees to plant density in order to guarantee high yields. Farmers compensate the pollinator as the bees make no excess honey.
Spring updates:
What else can you do? - Come on a bee course to start beekeeping now!
- This is the best time 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.
Our next Easy Buzzing Beekeeping Course is on 27 August in Midrand.
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 about R3315 all-in!
- 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 apiary sites with haste! The Spring is upon us all!
Focus on finding apiary sites that are rich in nectar flow and pollen. Preferably nectar for honey with medium pollen. Bees need both to survive and they need high quality sources of it to thrive.
Make sure you have cleared your apiary sites where they wintered or new spots you go to to avoid the risk of fire damage and losing your entire beekeeping business up in smoke. High winds and dry conditions make for perfect fire hazards.
Purchase extra supers if you are producing honey ie no pollinating. The bees will very quickly fill a super during the spring and will need harvesting and a second super can be added in the meantime while removing and extracting honey.
A honey extractor is also beneficial to speed speed this process up and can literally pay for itself in one harvest with a small apiary operation of 15 hives.
Northern Hemisphere: Take advantage of late blooming crops and fruit trees especially avocados, tomatoes, borage and onion.
Ensure you squeeze the last days of summer flowering... Soon it will darker earlier and cooler in the evenings and mornings too.
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 [11 units]
August Deal!Our double-walled honey heating tanks ONLY R9300! 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
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Please note that prices have increased in January 2016!
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