A Year in the Life of Schoonbee Landgoed’s Beekeeper
- 20th October 2022
Schoonbee Landgoed made a conscious decision to have resident bees on our farm in Groblersdal to remind all the people who work and stay on the farm of the sensitive nature of the environment.
NATURE’S TESTIMONY
Even though we have multiple international accreditations that govern the way in which we function within our environment, we took the challenge to have resident bees as nature’s testimony of how well we are performing in this.
This is not simple or easy. Bees can feed 6km from their hives. A lot of coordination and careful planning are required to protect our bees from insecticides that are used within the Loskop Valley. Having sufficient food in one place for the bees over a 12-month cycle is also a challenge.
It is against this background that the beekeeper from Schoonbee Landgoed must perform his trade. Dirk is one of our Production Managers during the day, applying his excellent interpersonal and leadership skills to looking after the hundreds of people harvesting crops during the citrus and grape seasons.
We began with 20 hives after the citrus blooming season of 2021. Dirk utilised the ideal conditions of the flora from our bushveld to carefully breed, swarm and nurture our hives. By the end of the 2022 Summer, we had reached the optimum number of 60 hives.
The beehives were moved to the banks of the Elephants River to provide the best habitat for our bees to survive the winter. The plan was to move them to an aloe veld at the end of July to strengthen their condition ahead of the citrus blooming season at the end of August.
On 14 July 2022 disaster struck. Our winter was warmer than normal, and the lemon orchards close to the beehives produced to some out-of-season blossoms. The orchards are enclosed with 6.8m high netting, but somehow the bees found a way through but they could not navigate inside the orchards and lost their way.
Most of the worker bees died, leaving their hives vulnerable. Bees from the surrounding hives started to attack and loot the vulnerable hives. It was carnage with only 8 swarms surviving and the remaining bees either dead or abandoning their hives. Dirk was a broken man.
STARTING OVER
Dirk moved the remaining hives to the aloe veld immediately. His first goal was to increase the number of swarms. He lured and caught wild swarms in an effort to rebuild the hives to their original strength. By the end of August the number of swarms had grown to 77 hives.
The next goal was to improve the condition of each swarm before the citrus bloom season started at the end of August. The abundance of aloe flowers created the right habitat for all his actions to produce maximum results.
By the beginning of September 2022, we had 80 beehives. Ten of these hives were in such excellent condition that Dirk added supers which store surplus honey for us to enjoy.
Dirk diligently update the team on his findings and progress made every day during his evenings and weekends with the hives. What an adventure it is and continues to be!
Enjoying a drop of citrus and flora honey from Schoonbee Landgoed is more than just appreciating the fruit of one of the most fascinating creatures created by God. It is celebrating and appreciating the amazing passion of Dirk who is living the trade that he learned from his father.
Visit our online shop to purchase from our growing range of pure, raw, non-irradiated and unprocessed honey.
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