01DARK BROOD COMB
The first stage of our cycle concerns dark brood combs. Our beekeepers bring the honeycombs to our company after filtering the honey from the honeycombs that they take out of the hive. The name of these combs is karapetek. The reason why beekeepers bring their honeycombs to us is that they cannot keep them in a healthy place. If the combs are not melted and turned into ingots, worms eat the combs. After a while, there is nothing left of the dark combs that are not turned into ingots. That’s why beekeepers bring us their combs to be pressed.
02SLAT STEAM SYSTEM
The next process is the slat steam system. The slat steam system is the sterilisation and separation of the slatted dark combs from the slats. The slatted dark combs entering the steam system. It is separated from the slats by taking steam. This cleans the frames and prepares the wax for controlled processing.
03WAX PRESSING
The pieces of dark combs coming out of the steam system are melted in boilers to be squeezed and turned into ingots. The process is carried out at a controlled temperature of 120°C. The melted dark combs become purified beeswax. The liquid wax is poured into block moulds and allowed to solidify. Once solid, it can be stored safely without damage from wax moths. In this way, we keep the waxes of all our beekeepers in our warehouses.
04HONEYCOMB PRINTING
Bees are very crowded when making combs, because they are trying to maintain a sufficient temperature for the wax by clinging to each other. When the temperature is sufficient, they begin to secrete wax. They produce thousands of hexagonal cells with the wax they produce and form honeycombs by combining the cells they produce. They measure the width and thickness of the honeycomb cells with their sensitive sensing hairs. Building a framed comb takes bees an average of 15–20 days, limiting the number of honey harvests in a season. Stored beeswax is returned to sterilised tanks, rested and formed into foundation sheets. These combs are printed from completely natural waxes without any additives. We help beekeepers to get 2 or 3 honey harvests at this point.
05FEEDING AND MAINTENANCE
Bees should be fed in order not to cause bee losses during the winter period. In this period, the hive should be supplemented with honey frame or bee cake, fondant sugar. With the mixed ready-made bee cake and fondant sugar produced by our company, we supply our beekeepers with controlled and additive-free bee food in this regard and we complete another stage of our controlled production cycle.
06ALL AUXILIARY EQUIPMENT
We supply the protective equipment, smokers, propolis traps and approved care products our contracted beekeepers need throughout the beekeeping cycle.
07WHOLESALE HONEY PROCUREMENT
It is the most important point in our cycle. This stage covers honey extraction, collection and delivery to our facility. Our beekeepers extract honey into food-safe containers before it reaches our facility, our expert colleagues take samples from all the tins one by one. These samples are homogenised. Afterwards, the honeys are analysed in the analysis laboratory of our company and according to the results, the approved honeys are delivered to the warehouse or rejected honeys are delivered to our beekeepers. After the required controls, approved honey is filled into barrels or packaged according to customer requirements.
