The importance of providing sufficient food for honey bees, to ensure their survival, was a key topic at a recent honey event hosted at Vergelegen wine estate in Somerset West in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on 10 June.
This knowledge-sharing event, open to the public, showcased a guided tour of selected Vergelegen hives, with consultant beekeeper Louis ‘Kraai’ van Niekerk, who has nurtured Vergelegen’s bees for nearly two decades.
The tour and educational discussion was followed by a presentation led by Shelly Fuller, programme manager of the WWF’s Sustainable Food Systems Portfolio. Fuller is leading a project funded by the Nedbank Green Trust programme aimed at raising awareness of the need to restore the diversity of indigenous forage for the Cape honeybee, especially in farming landscapes, in order to keep the populations of these vital pollinators healthy.
Guests also enjoyed a guided honey tasting, tea and scones, and gifts of bee-friendly plants.
They learnt that honey bees face major risks to their health and survival. Challenges include lack of food, exposure to fungicides and pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change.
Van Niekerk said that fynbos is a good source of nectar and pollen due to the large variety of Cape fynbos. There is a need for additional food sources in the form of eucalyptus trees, to address the shortage of nectar and pollen during certain times of the year.
Beekeeper Crecilda van der Merwe, director of Fish Hoek Farms, urged beekeepers to register with the Department of Agriculture and obtain a registration number. This enables the Department to share information to keep bees healthy. The Western Cape Bee Industries Association, of which she is a committee member, also supports hobbyists and commercial beekeepers.
“Do not feed sugar water to bees in your gardens,” she advised. “Rather grow plants for bees, and pollinators in general.”
Van der Merwe’s mentee, Dawn Noemdoe of Honey at Dawn in Wellington, urged trainee beekeepers to join associations and obtain guidance. “You cannot work by yourself, you need to work with people in the industry,” she advised.
The WWF partners with 60 Conservation Champions, of which Vergelegen is the longest-standing. The estate was the first wine producer to be awarded Biodiversity and Wine Initiative champion status, in March 2005, having made remarkable progress with a large-scale alien vegetation clearing project.
The removal of this alien vegetation has enabled indigenous vegetation to flourish, attracting more birds, insects and bees.
Vergelegen is home to 250 to 350 hives, depending on the season and orchard pollination requirements.
The estate has established an educational bee zone housing a number of hives. This area is planted with bee-friendly plants such as lavender, vygies, white mustard, clover, Japanese radish and sunflowers. The hives are placed on pallets, and the area is enclosed by two fences, to keep honey badgers at bay.
Visitors can experience Vergelegen’s nature reserve and learn about its environmental initiatives, including honey bees, on guided tours. These take place in a game drive vehicle. The tour is weather permitting, departing from the wine tasting centre at 10.00. Duration one and a half hours, R500 per person, maximum nine people.
