Bee Keeping

T

Tweak

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Hello,

I'm wondering if there are any other members here who has a passion for bee keeping? I've recently just completed my "Blue Book" for the novice bee keeper. Now I am looking to buy my first hive and find my first swarm :D

Problem is that I don't know where to get my swarm of bees from yet :P

Anyone here that can give me a name of a bee keeper in the free state who wouldn't charge me too much for a small colony of bees ?

Cheers
 
I had to call a guy out to remove bee's end of last year (the farkers were stinging my dogs), he shared some awesome stories and facts about bee's. pity he is in Germiston so won't be ideal to help you.
 
I used to keep bees. I have no idea what the 'blue book' is tho..:p

I used to have 16 hives up in Thabazimbi on our family's farm. But then my children where born and it became to difficult to drive up to the farm twice a month to tend the hives and catch new swarms.
We still tried to keep them and maintain them until a couple of badgers moved onto the farm and demolished 11 of the hives. The little buggers even climb a nearby tree and jump to the hives! We where heartbroken so we gave the swarms we had to someone on a neighboring farm and packed it up. The equipment just lay there for a few years until we got some people to go and live on the farm full time (we had a problem with poaching). They have started again and have caught 6 swarms in the last few months..

Honestly why dont you get some pheromone and catch a swarm yourself? Its pretty simple and might take a little time depending on where you are, but now is the perfect time because they usually swarm around now. I have found personally if you melt some of the wax they are attracted to that also. Once we where cleaning a whole lot of supers and packed them on the back of our bakkie and a swarm moved in to them without any frames or wax, purely because there was melted wax on them where we where sealing them.

Good luck, and remember no ammount of protective clothing will prevent you getting stung a few times, so keep the antihistamines handy :D
 
Madman88 said:
I used to keep bees. I have no idea what the 'blue book' is tho..:p

I used to have 16 hives up in Thabazimbi on our family's farm. But then my children where born and it became to difficult to drive up to the farm twice a month to tend the hives and catch new swarms.
We still tried to keep them and maintain them until a couple of badgers moved onto the farm and demolished 11 of the hives. The little buggers even climb a nearby tree and jump to the hives! We where heartbroken so we gave the swarms we had to someone on a neighboring farm and packed it up. The equipment just lay there for a few years until we got some people to go and live on the farm full time (we had a problem with poaching). They have started again and have caught 6 swarms in the last few months..

Honestly why dont you get some pheromone and catch a swarm yourself? Its pretty simple and might take a little time depending on where you are, but now is the perfect time because they usually swarm around now. I have found personally if you melt some of the wax they are attracted to that also. Once we where cleaning a whole lot of supers and packed them on the back of our bakkie and a swarm moved in to them without any frames or wax, purely because there was melted wax on them where we where sealing them.

Good luck, and remember no ammount of protective clothing will prevent you getting stung a few times, so keep the antihistamines handy :D
Click to expand...

Hehe interesting stuff.

Thanks for your reply to my topic. I Am also quite cautious about poachers / murauders. Since the hives are about R800 today. I don't think I can afford to have mine demolished without having had a honey crop.

I've just about started a few months too late. The flowers in my area are in maximum flow at the moment I believe, and my bees will need a couple of weeks to reach optimal colony strength for harvesting honey. I don't know if there will be any remaining nectar by then :P

Luckily I don't have any girlfriend or family to keep me from achieving maximum hives :p Except for finances at the moment. Hope to be allowed into some big honey farm in the country where I can pick up some expertise on how to operate such a business.

I'm quite excited about getting stung too :D
How do I get these pheromones you talked about, to catch my first colony? Since I don't have bees wax to melt at the moment.
 
Tweak said:
Hehe interesting stuff.

Thanks for your reply to my topic. I Am also quite cautious about poachers / murauders. Since the hives are about R800 today. I don't think I can afford to have mine demolished without having had a honey crop.

I've just about started a few months too late. The flowers in my area are in maximum flow at the moment I believe, and my bees will need a couple of weeks to reach optimal colony strength for harvesting honey. I don't know if there will be any remaining nectar by then :P

Luckily I don't have any girlfriend or family to keep me from achieving maximum hives :p Except for finances at the moment. Hope to be allowed into some big honey farm in the country where I can pick up some expertise on how to operate such a business.

I'm quite excited about getting stung too :D
How do I get these pheromones you talked about, to catch my first colony? Since I don't have bees wax to melt at the moment.
Click to expand...

We got our fist hives from the junkmail, did a quick search and found this, a full hive will help your new swarm get thru the winter. All the other stuff we got from http://www.honeybadger.co.za/
Have a look under chemicals, I seem to think we used the "Swarm Catch", but the best is to give them a call. I believe they are in Pretoria.

You might have to make a trip to Gauteng tho.
 
We have some bees in our garden. They are very aggressive most of the time. Good luck.
 
ponder said:
Allergic.
Click to expand...

Same here. I used to love bees, but when I was a kid, I kept getting stung over and over again because I used to play in the garden a lot. When i was about 9/10, I was stung, and suddenly developed an allergic reaction. My foot was massive! Those lil shytes can just avoid me now :mad:.
 
I have a question about the honey itself...

If you plant lots and lots of rosemary around the hives, and the bees pollinate these, will the honey develop a rosemary flavour?
 
Tosser said:
I have a question about the honey itself...

If you plant lots and lots of rosemary around the hives, and the bees pollinate these, will the honey develop a rosemary flavour?
Click to expand...

You will probably still end up with a multifloral honey. That is, honey made from bees that visit a wide range of flowers. Since bee's travel up to 8 km to find pollen it is very difficult to keep them to one kind of flower. However, I know that honey made by bee's that visit primarily one kind of flower take on a specific flavour, such as orange blossom, lime, sunflower, honeysuckle and the most sought after Heather.
Although it needs to be noted that the flavor often does not match the flower or fruit.
 
scotty777 said:
Same here. I used to love bees, but when I was a kid, I kept getting stung over and over again because I used to play in the garden a lot. When i was about 9/10, I was stung, and suddenly developed an allergic reaction. My foot was massive! Those lil shytes can just avoid me now :mad:.
Click to expand...

Weird thing is I only became allergic at age 15. These days I'm allergic to bees, blue bottles, jellyfish and who knows what else. I love honey though & I never kill bees :D
 
ponder said:
Weird thing is I only became allergic at age 15. These days I'm allergic to bees, blue bottles, jellyfish and who knows what else. I love honey though & I never kill bees :D
Click to expand...

I just avoid the little devils... I don't try piss them off, but I know they carry a bigger punch than me, and they like the Lebanese, they gave a k@k load of charna's and cousins... I just try brush them away from my mouth and nose because if it goes down my throat, I'm in shyte!

As for Allegies coming and going, I used to be allergic to all fish, but now it seems to be just self fish... (I still hate fish...the smell alone makes me ill :sick:). However, with selfish, I got an allergic reaction from when I went to an Ocean basket with my folks (I ordered steers through them because they know I'm allergic to their menu :p...) and someone must have messed some of their prawns on the table, I touched the table and scratched my eye... in about 10 min, my eyes swelled up and I looked like Bear Grylls when he was stung by a bee! "F O K K EN PRAWNS!"
 
scotty777 said:
I just avoid the little devils... I don't try piss them off, but I know they carry a bigger punch than me, and they like the Lebanese, they gave a k@k load of charna's and cousins... I just try brush them away from my mouth and nose because if it goes down my throat, I'm in shyte!

As for Allegies coming and going, I used to be allergic to all fish, but now it seems to be just self fish... (I still hate fish...the smell alone makes me ill :sick:). However, with selfish, I got an allergic reaction from when I went to an Ocean basket with my folks (I ordered steers through them because they know I'm allergic to their menu :p...) and someone must have messed some of their prawns on the table, I touched the table and scratched my eye... in about 10 min, my eyes swelled up and I looked like Bear Grylls when he was stung by a bee! "F O K K EN PRAWNS!"
Click to expand...

I lol'd... A lot :D "selfish / self fish" sorry :o
 
I've got a little swarm that attached itself to the back of the house - anybody want it?
 
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