Showing posts with label honey farm. Show all posts

Ah, Beekeeping. Relaxing, therapeutic, not to mention the money you can make.

Only, you need bees. So on Saturday we got more equipment, hives, stands,etc. The catchers we put up produced no bees as the swarm we targeted upped and left. Not surprising as it is the worst month for beekeeping. So we place some catcher hives on the shed roof, and placed one hive next to the yard. But Monday was a whole different story.
At about nine o'clock we were greeted by this..

BEES AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE HIVE OUTSIDE THE YARD.


Unfortunately, the camera I used couldn't capture what the eye was seeing. Because the hives was standing outside, seven of them, bees came streaming in. And it seemed like about five hives were being occupied. I was super stoked, and didn't want to go back to work (as I had quickly slipped home to see what was happening). They were all over the place and it looked promising.

I got on the phone and started calling around and organizing some spots to place our soon to be filled hives. Little did I know...
By the time I got home at four, the bees were gone. Only a few remained in one hive and they didn't look very busy. By this morning, there were none.

I fear I don't have enough life to live. Meaning, I have so many ambitions, that I don't think I can ever get to them all.

One of these ambitions was to be a bee keeper and honey farmer, just one of many "it would be nice to do" things, not really having any way of getting started, until last year.
My Mother-in-law left her job to be a full time baby minder for my wife and my son. So she thought of ways to have an income while being at home, and one of these were honey. So earlier this year, my Father-in-law lost his job due to unforeseen reasons, and the need for an income intensified.

So with the help of my Father, I found an old beekeeper, and not only did he offer to sell us an all you need, beekeeping "stater kit" but was also willing to share his fifty odd years of beekeeping knowledge and experience,only, the price tag was way more than all of us had to spend.So with the help of my wife's accountant uncle, we managed to get financing from my M-I-L's brother and F-I-L's cousin, who both saw the golden opportunity. Golden opportunity you ask? Well, The greatest part of honey in South Africa, is imported, as there are only a few large scale honey producers in the country, therefor it is a viable market.

This all took a few months to work out as there were traveling up and down and meetings with our would be supplier and then finally, about a month ago, payments were made. And today, some of the equipment was fetched. In fact, we now have eleven catcher hives, two protective veils, two smokers, a hive brush, and a hive tool. The rest is on its way. We also have the location of two bee colonies, and will be placing a catcher hive tomorrow to get our first colony.