From page 17
required , that can vary from 17 days to 30 days . Different types of crops require bees for different lengths of time and different crops require different numbers of hives per hectare or per number of fruit trees in the orchards . The bee colonies have to be of a certain standard of strength to be regarded as a pollination unit . The farmer will call in an extension officer to check the strength of each hive and unsuitable hives will have to be replaced by other hives of required strength . The cost to the farmer is then calculated and payment made to the beekeeper at the onset of the pollination period . If not paid within a certain short time , a day or two , the beekeeper has the right to remove all his swarms . On completion of the period
of the contract, he then has to move away on the stipulated day after the pollination period to another site . Thrown into this assortment of events , the farmer has his crop spraying programme and , usually at short notice , the beekeeper is called in to close his hives for the day of the spraying . In most cases the hives are weakened by the pollination , by the fact that there is insufficient honey that could have been gathered , and the bees are starved of their carbohydrate intake from which they obtain their energy . These hives cannot be reused in the same season as they will not be up to the required strength for the pollination service . These hives have to be placed on suitable bee forage plants to build them up to strength for the next pollination contract , and for these plants the beekeeper turns to eucalyptus trees . Around 1970 , the Dept of Agriculture , in collaboration with a leading beekeeper of Pretoria and others of the East Rand , decided to upgrade the bee industry in South Africa . Their vision was far sighted to the future requirements of the pollination in our country which has placed the industry in the position we have today . A fact-finding group toured Australia , then a leading country in beekeeping , and a great deal of valuable information was gleaned that started serious beekeeping in South Africa . Changes to our hive construction afforded more efficiency for migratory beekeeping , It was impressed upon the group that the eucalyptus trees would form the backbone of the industry for the good development and strengthening of swarms after
BEEKEEPING
the pollination contracts , and a place for the hives between pollinating periods which occur mainly from July to November each year . In 1976 the eucalyptus was declared “ The tree of the Year ” for its value as wind breaks on farms , timber as firewood for the farm staff and most valuable forage for the growing bee industry . Thousands of trees were propagated from seeds at forestry nurseries and sold as small trees in trays of a
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