By Ian Williams
Beekeepers Norm and Val Pope discovered the hard way that a life tending hives isn’t all honey and roses.
The Port Lincoln couple almost went broke when they launched their business in the mid 1980s and then the bank came knocking wanting to repossess their house during a vicious drought a couple of years later.
But hard work and business integrity helped them survive the tough times and today Pope’s Honey is the envy of beekeepers across Australia.
For the past three years they have taken out the prize for champion honey at the Royal Adelaide Show. This year they knocked off the nation’s best at the Sydney Royal National Honey Show with their ultra-smooth creamed honey named champion in the commercial section.
Norm and Val Pope
And at the age of 65 the South Australian couple is showing no signs of slowing. They started running pre-booked tours at Easter to demonstrate the process of making great honey with a glass-sided hive showing how the bees do their bit.
“We did struggle in those early years but the business really is going from strength to strength,” says Norm. “We discovered that beekeeping is not just a numbers game and that bigger is not necessarily better.”
They reduced the number of hives from 400 at their peak to about 180 which gives them bigger, stronger and healthier hives that are more productive and the overheads are less.
“We put the hives down in small loads so that there’s enough food for the bees to look after themselves and honey production is much higher,” says Norm. “We also re-queen every 12 months, rather than two years which some beekeepers do, and we feed them proteins and supplements.”
Pope’s Honey currently produces about 30 tonnes of honey a year and about 500 kilos of wax. Much of that is sold locally with the rest sent to Adelaide.
Norm says they take great pride in delivering a quality product which has been key to their success. They are also not afraid of sharing their knowledge with potential competitors.
“We’ve been mentoring some other young beekeepers who have been starting out – it’s really valuable to pass on knowledge to the right people,” he says.
They also employed a stroke victim to give him confidence and assist his transition back into the workforce.
As for bee stings, well that’s all part of the business.
“Norm doesn’t mind the bee stings too much – he’s more scared of a mosquito bite,” says Val.
mapp.data.push( {“alignment”:””,”center”:{“lat”:-34.7301943,”lng”:135.8504838},”editable”:null,”filter”:null,”height”:”150″,”hideEmpty”:null,”initialOpenDirections”:null,”initialOpenInfo”:false,”layers”:null,”layout”:”inline”,”mapid”:”104″,”mapTypeId”:”roadmap”,”metaKey”:null,”minZoom”:null,”name”:”mapp1″,”poiList”:false,”postid”:”9985″,”query”:null,”title”:”Untitled”,”width”:”100%”,”zoom”:10,”pois”:[{“address”:”Port Lincoln SA 5606, Australia”,”body”:”Australia”,”correctedAddress”:”Port Lincoln SA 5606, Australia”,”iconid”:null,”point”:{“lat”:-34.7301943,”lng”:135.8504838},”poly”:null,”postid”:null,”kml”:null,”thumbnail”:null,”title”:”Port Lincoln SA 5606″,”type”:null,”url”:null,”viewport”:{“sw”:{“lat”:-34.7696584,”lng”:135.81060550000007},”ne”:{“lat”:-34.6874141,”lng”:135.8936519}},”html”:”
“}]} );
if (typeof mapp.load != ‘undefined’) { mapp.load(); };
Regional Awards Partners
