Kola le Roux proves that humans have a powerful capacity to reinvent themselves.
Le Roux, 65, went from being a two-time world waveskiing champion and five-time South African champion and board shaper, to a bee and sunflower farmer.
He now resides far from his beloved Nahoon Reef.
It wasn’t a bad swap. At his Macleantown farm there is an explosion of more than 350000 magnificent sunflowers, which he planted to keep his beloved bees happy and producing honey.
“I have loved bees from when I was small. I think it’s because my grandfather had them in the Free State,” said Le Roux, who manufactured the Kolaski range of waveskis, canoes, boogie boards and sail boards from 1982 to 1992. His wife, Trudi, still runs the Kolaski shop in Quigney.
Bee-mad Le Roux, who once bottled honey in the kitchen of his Princess Alice Road home in Nahoon, was propelled to move to a former dairy farm off the N6 13 years ago after his bees “went haywire” and stung passers-by.
“My bee-keeping, which I started in 1987, got too big so we moved to the farm, where I converted the dairy into a honey-making plant,” said Le Roux, who has about 200 hives dotted about his farm, and bottles his golden honey under the Kola Honey label.
“I also have bee hives on farms all over the place – in Cradock, Somerset East, Fort Beaufort, Mthatha and all around Macleantown, Komgha and the Kei River. The bees make different types of honey, depending on the flowers in the the area, so in Cradock I get lucerne honey, in Mthatha, blue- gum honey and here we get multiflora honey.”
In order to keep his bees in nectar and pollen, Le Roux planted sunflowers in a 12ha valley on his farm and, although the lack of rain has led to a less lofty crop, the flower field also produces blooms for the cut-flower market in East London.
“The bees love them. There are not many other flowers anywhere at the moment, so they are just eating from sunflowers. I also sell sunflower seeds in the city for bird feed, and am thinking of growing sunflowers with bigger seeds for the health-food market.”
He still shapes custom waveski boards on the farm for local, Cape Town and Durban clients, but his real passion now is travelling to his far-flung hives to collect honey.
“We harvest every day in the summer. We use extracting machines to extract the honey from the honeycomb, and then we put the empties back for them to fill again. I can’t wait to take out the honey to see what they’ve done,” said Le Roux, who wears safety gear when harvesting honeycomb, but no longer uses gloves.
“I get stung a lot. Once I had about 40 stings in one day on my hand. It’s sore, but I don’t swell up anymore, and I think it’s good for arthritis.”
Kola reinvents himself as a commercial beekeeper
Le Roux, 65, went from being a two-time world waveskiing champion and five-time South African champion and board shaper, to a bee and sunflower farmer.
He now resides far from his beloved Nahoon Reef.
It wasn’t a bad swap. At his Macleantown farm there is an explosion of more than 350000 magnificent sunflowers, which he planted to keep his beloved bees happy and producing honey.
“I have loved bees from when I was small. I think it’s because my grandfather had them in the Free State,” said Le Roux, who manufactured the Kolaski range of waveskis, canoes, boogie boards and sail boards from 1982 to 1992. His wife, Trudi, still runs the Kolaski shop in Quigney.
Bee-mad Le Roux, who once bottled honey in the kitchen of his Princess Alice Road home in Nahoon, was propelled to move to a former dairy farm off the N6 13 years ago after his bees “went haywire” and stung passers-by.
“My bee-keeping, which I started in 1987, got too big so we moved to the farm, where I converted the dairy into a honey-making plant,” said Le Roux, who has about 200 hives dotted about his farm, and bottles his golden honey under the Kola Honey label.
“I also have bee hives on farms all over the place – in Cradock, Somerset East, Fort Beaufort, Mthatha and all around Macleantown, Komgha and the Kei River. The bees make different types of honey, depending on the flowers in the the area, so in Cradock I get lucerne honey, in Mthatha, blue- gum honey and here we get multiflora honey.”
In order to keep his bees in nectar and pollen, Le Roux planted sunflowers in a 12ha valley on his farm and, although the lack of rain has led to a less lofty crop, the flower field also produces blooms for the cut-flower market in East London.
“The bees love them. There are not many other flowers anywhere at the moment, so they are just eating from sunflowers. I also sell sunflower seeds in the city for bird feed, and am thinking of growing sunflowers with bigger seeds for the health-food market.”
He still shapes custom waveski boards on the farm for local, Cape Town and Durban clients, but his real passion now is travelling to his far-flung hives to collect honey.
“We harvest every day in the summer. We use extracting machines to extract the honey from the honeycomb, and then we put the empties back for them to fill again. I can’t wait to take out the honey to see what they’ve done,” said Le Roux, who wears safety gear when harvesting honeycomb, but no longer uses gloves.
“I get stung a lot. Once I had about 40 stings in one day on my hand. It’s sore, but I don’t swell up anymore, and I think it’s good for arthritis.”
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