Is writing an essay of 300 words that bad? No! To be honest before this blogging assignment I though writing an essay of 300 words was terrible, I said to myself, “how am I going to write 300 words, is that impossible?” Each one of my previous posts is longer than 300 words and every time I start writing my next post I finished it quickly. So writing 300 words is not impossible, I will certainly write our next essay with a big smile. J
Writing each week’s blog post affected me positively, because at first I had no confidence in speaking English. But after these past 5 weeks I have gained much more confidence and have enjoyed communicating with others in English. There is just one little bad thing, it is my vocabulary, but luckily I had Google translate, so during this assignment we have become best buddies... And do not forget my dictionary on my phone.
This beekeeping blog has kept me on my toes regarding our beekeeping business. It also reminded me of all the times I have gone with my father harvesting honey, what hard work it was, but also how wonderful the honeybee is and what they are capable of doing.
Now at the finish line of my blogging journey, I have enjoyed it and it was such a great experience, I will do my best to keep on blogging because there are still so many things I can tell you, all the elements in beekeeping, the different types of honey, seasons and so much more…
This last paragraph I would like to dedicate to my English lecturer Dr C Proudfoot. Thank you ma’am for making English such great fun and teaching us how to blog, because this blogging technique I could use later on in the future too. Previously I did not like English, but now it is just the right opposite, I love English and I think English rocks! *
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
The honeybees
Did you know there is estimated 25 000 bee species in the world? And there are 12 different types of bees, at the bottom of this post you will find a link where the 12 types of bees are discussed. From the 12 types of bees we are going to have a look at the honeybees and learn more from them.
The honeybee colony has three casts of bees namely, the queen, the drone (male) and the worker (female). The queen bee is the one that lays the eggs, she lives up to three years or more. In her lifetime she can lay approximately half a million eggs, so that is almost 2000 - 3000 eggs per day.
But where does the queen come from if the queen only lays eggs of male (drone) and female (worker) bees? Well the queen is raised from a normal worker egg, the only difference is that particular egg gets royal jelly and the queen develops.
Most of the beehive consists of worker bees, and like I have already said in my previous posts is that the worker bee lives about 40 days during season time and during winter when there is no nectar to harvest, they live up to 16 weeks. But like any worker you will have specific instructions to follow.
This is the activities the worker bee completes in a certain amount of days:
Here is the link I promised: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/types-of-bees.html
The honeybee colony has three casts of bees namely, the queen, the drone (male) and the worker (female). The queen bee is the one that lays the eggs, she lives up to three years or more. In her lifetime she can lay approximately half a million eggs, so that is almost 2000 - 3000 eggs per day.
But where does the queen come from if the queen only lays eggs of male (drone) and female (worker) bees? Well the queen is raised from a normal worker egg, the only difference is that particular egg gets royal jelly and the queen develops.
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| The queen bee. |
The drone is twice the size of the worker, but is smaller than the queen. They do not work like the worker bee in the colony, their only role is to mate with the queen. Therefore the drone is distinctive for his big and strong wings, to be able to take part in the mating process.
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| The drone bee. |
This is the activities the worker bee completes in a certain amount of days:
Period
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Work activity
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Days 1 – 3
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Cleaning cells and incubation
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Day 3 – 6
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Feeding older larvae
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Day 6 – 10
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Feeding younger larvae
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Day 8 – 16
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Receiving honey and pollen from field bees
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Day 12 – 13
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Wax making and cell building
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Day 14 onwards
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Entrance guards; nectar and pollen foraging
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| The worker bee. |
I hope that this information was interesting and that you shall can recognize the different types of honeybees, the queen, the drone and the worker bee and know what their responsibilities are to the honeybee colony. |
| Here you can see the different sizes of the bees. From the left: The queen, the worker and the drone. |
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| The worker bee flying pollen. |
Friday, 1 June 2012
Where it all started
It is wonderful what a hobby can do for you. Twenty seven years ago, my father started with four beehives on his father’s farm. My father was the eldest of three brothers and each one of them had a hobby, like the youngest one planted vegetables and the other one had doves, so my father’s hobby was beekeeping.
A few year later his hobby got bigger and bigger, and became later on a business. So at that young age to have twenty five beehives was quite big, but not everything went smoothly for his business because on that stage my father owned an old Mercedes car and harvesting honey with a car, can you think of all the honey making the car seats all sticky and dirty, but like the saying goes “drastic times call for drastic measures”. The beehives are between bushes, can you imagine a twee wheel drive car driving through bushes and thick sand? No ways! It was impossible, my father needed to walk from beehive to beehive.
As you can see my father is a hard worker and so in fifteen to twenty years time his business grown up to three hundred beehives. The beehives was spread over a few thousand hectare of ground on farms nearby. Of course he is very fortunate to know so many farmers in the nearby areas where he could put the beehives.
Four years ago my father’s fishing factory where he worked at closed, because of financial problems and so he lost his job. But luckily thanks to his hobby and hard work, the beekeeping business consist now of four hundred and fifty beehives. During the honey season my father gets his income from all the honey harvested in that period.
I have learned a lot from his story, to begin with is that you need to do something you love to do, like a hobby. Then within a business you begin with scratch and built yourself up into a big and successful business although the journey to success is not always going to be easy. The beekeeping business was like a sideline job for my father and in life it is good to have a plan B or second option to choose from. After the factory closed my father did not needed to go and look for work, he had the beekeeping business that was his new full-time job.
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune”, meaning hard work brings rewards. And here is another one which is similar to the previous one “Elbow grease is the best polish”, hard work gives the best results.
A few year later his hobby got bigger and bigger, and became later on a business. So at that young age to have twenty five beehives was quite big, but not everything went smoothly for his business because on that stage my father owned an old Mercedes car and harvesting honey with a car, can you think of all the honey making the car seats all sticky and dirty, but like the saying goes “drastic times call for drastic measures”. The beehives are between bushes, can you imagine a twee wheel drive car driving through bushes and thick sand? No ways! It was impossible, my father needed to walk from beehive to beehive.
As you can see my father is a hard worker and so in fifteen to twenty years time his business grown up to three hundred beehives. The beehives was spread over a few thousand hectare of ground on farms nearby. Of course he is very fortunate to know so many farmers in the nearby areas where he could put the beehives.
Four years ago my father’s fishing factory where he worked at closed, because of financial problems and so he lost his job. But luckily thanks to his hobby and hard work, the beekeeping business consist now of four hundred and fifty beehives. During the honey season my father gets his income from all the honey harvested in that period.
I have learned a lot from his story, to begin with is that you need to do something you love to do, like a hobby. Then within a business you begin with scratch and built yourself up into a big and successful business although the journey to success is not always going to be easy. The beekeeping business was like a sideline job for my father and in life it is good to have a plan B or second option to choose from. After the factory closed my father did not needed to go and look for work, he had the beekeeping business that was his new full-time job.
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune”, meaning hard work brings rewards. And here is another one which is similar to the previous one “Elbow grease is the best polish”, hard work gives the best results.
Friday, 25 May 2012
Description of why is honey so expensive
Why is honey so expensive in South Africa? Well I am going to give you three reasons why honey is so expensive.
First like any type of farming you depend on nature, for example the amount of rain during the winter will have an effect on the flowers of the bushes and trees. If there are no flowers, there would be no nectar for the bees to harvest. In the Western Cape we did not get much rain during the winter in 2011, so according to last year's records we harvested less honey than the previous year. This is not just the case in 2011 that was a bad season, if I were to draw a graph of the past 5 years you will see a decrease in our total amount of honey harvest for each season. So honey has become rare but that is not the only reason why honey is so expensive.
The second reason is because of the whole process that honey is going through. So first you must harvest the honey at the beehive, where you collect the frames where the bees store the honey. The frames consist of many wax cells, where the bees store the honey and if the cell is full the bees seal it off. So the next step is to uncap those cells, with a uncapping fork. Then you extract the honey and after extracting the honey you need to filter it and then you can pour it into pots.
Then the third and last reason is about a special and unique little animal, the bee. Did you know that the worker bee (female) produce approximately 2.5 grams of honey in her life, they only live for about 40 days during the season period, and some of them die earlier because they work themselves to death. Just think how many bees you will need to fill up a 1 kilogram pot of honey? Then it will take a bee swarm up to 2 - 3 weeks to produce enough honey for the beekeeper to harvest.
So these are the three biggest reasons why honey is so expensive in South Africa, because it is unique, rare and a long process to complete, but this I can insure you that it is worth the wait, because the victory will always be sweet.
First like any type of farming you depend on nature, for example the amount of rain during the winter will have an effect on the flowers of the bushes and trees. If there are no flowers, there would be no nectar for the bees to harvest. In the Western Cape we did not get much rain during the winter in 2011, so according to last year's records we harvested less honey than the previous year. This is not just the case in 2011 that was a bad season, if I were to draw a graph of the past 5 years you will see a decrease in our total amount of honey harvest for each season. So honey has become rare but that is not the only reason why honey is so expensive.
The second reason is because of the whole process that honey is going through. So first you must harvest the honey at the beehive, where you collect the frames where the bees store the honey. The frames consist of many wax cells, where the bees store the honey and if the cell is full the bees seal it off. So the next step is to uncap those cells, with a uncapping fork. Then you extract the honey and after extracting the honey you need to filter it and then you can pour it into pots.
Then the third and last reason is about a special and unique little animal, the bee. Did you know that the worker bee (female) produce approximately 2.5 grams of honey in her life, they only live for about 40 days during the season period, and some of them die earlier because they work themselves to death. Just think how many bees you will need to fill up a 1 kilogram pot of honey? Then it will take a bee swarm up to 2 - 3 weeks to produce enough honey for the beekeeper to harvest.
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| Honey |
Saturday, 12 May 2012
Personal
The reason for creating this blog, is because it is an assignment for English Communication. First I never blogged before in my life, so this my first time. The saying goes, "there is always a first time for everything".
So blogging is totally new for me and a new challenge, to test my skills and ability to do things what is new.
Well before I could have made this post I needed to create my blog. I did not find it difficult because I am studying for a teacher and one of my subjects is Computer Applications Technology (CAT), so I had the necessary skills to work on the computer. So I played around with all the functions on blogger by clicking on every possible link and added my profile picture and background. The only thing I founded difficult was to upload a new theme from the Internet to my blog. But there is another saying that say, "there are many ways to skin a cat", so I designed my own template.
My blog is about beekeeping, we have a beekeeping business so I am going to tell our story and how great is the bee. I am looking forward to this journey of blogging and I hope you are going to enjoy my blog as much as I am going to.
So blogging is totally new for me and a new challenge, to test my skills and ability to do things what is new.
Well before I could have made this post I needed to create my blog. I did not find it difficult because I am studying for a teacher and one of my subjects is Computer Applications Technology (CAT), so I had the necessary skills to work on the computer. So I played around with all the functions on blogger by clicking on every possible link and added my profile picture and background. The only thing I founded difficult was to upload a new theme from the Internet to my blog. But there is another saying that say, "there are many ways to skin a cat", so I designed my own template.
My blog is about beekeeping, we have a beekeeping business so I am going to tell our story and how great is the bee. I am looking forward to this journey of blogging and I hope you are going to enjoy my blog as much as I am going to.
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