My quest in becoming a top honey producing bee farmer in South Africa! Step 3

Hey everyone, it has been nine days since my last update and a lot has happened since then, all extremely exciting of course! Check out my last post here with updates on my Quest to becoming a top honey producing bee farmer in South Africa.
https://steemit.com/gogreenbuddy/@craigcryptoking/my-quest-in-becoming-a-top-producing-south-african-bee-farmer-step-2

Today's visit to a local bee equipment supplier was one of extreme excitement and intrigue, almost the reality of it all properly setting in now and how incredibly exciting the prospect is!

I have been finalizing pricing for equipment from hives to supers, honey extractors, wax strips, buckets, smokers bee suits and more and I think I finally have all my ducks in a row in terms of what is needed as well as the costs involved!

Today we took a drive out to a store in Centurion South Africa, they are a one stop shop for all your bee-keeping equipment/needs! The company in question has 5 stores nationwide and are extremely popular and a true 'hive' of information for both novice and experienced bee-keepers!

I learnt so much today including that the queen bee needs to be transported separately over long distances if you were to move hives, as well as she eats marshmallows, no jokes, legitimately you need to do this or else you risk her dying which in turn can render the whole swarm extinct. I think one of the many things I am enjoying the most about this incredible journey is the learning curve. I always knew bees were totally incredible, however the more I learn the more I am totally intrigued by their magnificence, beauty and contribution to life on Earth!

Below we have beehives these retail for R1500 which includes all the wax strips and queen excluder. The Queen Excluder is a metal mesh which is placed over the top of the brooder box. The queen is larger than the rest of the bees, this mesh prevents the Queen Bee entering the super boxes at the top, which enables that the honey for harvest is not 'polluted' with eggs and larvae! Human consumption thereof would probably just give you a little extra protein boost, but generally not a good idea, you want to produce more bees not eat them, that is what the honey is for!

www.beeware.co.za for all your bee equipment needs in South Africa they have a few branches nationwide be sure to visit the site it really is very informative!

Here we have a general overview of the shop, they really are the one stop shop and sell everything from all the necessary bee equipment as well as bulk raw honey, bees wax candles soaps and more, A MUST VISIT if you are South Africa based and enthusiastic about bees!

Another very interesting product they sell is a herbal propolis cream (one of many bi-products bees produce) great for everything from eczema, burns, warts and other skin conditions one of the very best natural skin treatments available on the market!

Naturally a bee 'themed' store everything is a honey comb, just looks too pretty for words so much that I wouldn't be totally adverse to making a few of these for my house what a lovely interior decorative design and rather functional too I feel!

Below we have automatic honey extractors (spinners) as well as collection/settling tanks. The honey extractor is a must and all bee-keepers have them. Once you have harvested all the supers off the hives these need to immediately be placed into the honey extractor and spun, to remove all the honey off the combs. One need to do this whilst the honey is still warm. Raw honey crystalizes very quickly and is very difficult to work with once in this form so as soon as you have spun the honey off the combs need to be tapped off into a settling tank and then into the final containers for sale!

The honey can also be left in the settling tank as it has a nice big tap at the bottom to be tapped off later at your leisure. Many folks also spin honey off directly into plastic buckets this work if you plan to sell the bucket with honey as is, decanting it later from these buckets however is very tricky and sticky ;) as well as cleaning up becoming more time consuming and difficult. A honey settling pot for large honey producers is a must!

Here we have a close up of the Stainless steel honey extractor. We will be buying a 4 frame honey extractor what I love so much about the unit we are buying is you can actually fit 8 frames in this unit. An 8 frame unit costs R11 000 odd we are paying R5500 because they call it a 4 frame spinner, what a bonus!

Another interesting thing I learnt today is one gets supplements for bees in seasons of drought and low food this been one of them. A very nice to know when and if we find ourselves facing that prospect. We are extremely lucky however as we are now going into the honey flow season (Spring/Summer) with a little luck wont be facing that for a while.

Be sure to stay tuned for more coming soon. We will be buying the honey extractor soon and harvesting 40 frames from our 2 existing hives. We plan on buying another ten hives and tripling production soonest.

I am going to buzzzz off now, have a super sweet evening, excuse the pun ;)

Cheer$;)