Our Story
Born the daughter of a commercial beekeeper in the Northern Cape, I grew up with bees, but the thought of becoming a beekeeper myself, never crossed my mind and definitely not that of my father’s. So off I went to The Northwest University to do my bachelors in Tourism and that’s where I met my future husband (and beekeeping partner), Daniel Vorster. He was studying Economics at the time. Meeting my dad opened a whole new world for Daniel who’s never met a beekeeper before. Soon they were talking nights away about all of the possibilities of beekeeping in South Africa.
After we finished our degrees and a year of adventure teaching English in Taiwan, we got an opportunity to do beekeeping in Canada, so we jumped at the chance and off we went. Working for Reece and Eco Chanler at Scandia Honey Company was a real eye opener on how and to what extent beekeeping could be done. This experience just reinforced all of the opportunities that we saw in our own country.
Back in South Africa Daniel asked the BIG question. Overjoyed, we started planning our future together and as we got ever more intrigued by the fascinating ways of the bee, decided to stay in Douglas for a year to learn all of the tricks of the trade from Theunis Engelbrecht, my dad. Working with my dad was such an honour and to tap from his years of experience not only with bees, but also with other SA Beekeepers was just priceless.
So at the end of 2010 Daniel and I got married in Douglas. Soon after our honeymoon we moved to Hermanus in the Western Cape where we bought our own beekeeping business and that’s where Overberg Honey Company was born. After many hours in veil, but not in vein, our business went from strength to strength and grew so rapidly that we soon moved from Kleinmond to Stanford in search of a bigger premises to expand our services. Now it was time to share the golden joy, so we opened our own little honey shop. Our little Family soon included Patrick and Victoria Rawuzela, Chris Williams and our two lovely guard dogs, Nuga and Logan.
Skip forward another 8 years- A lot has changed, not only at Overberg Honey Company, but in the world. Honey Bees has become quite a topic- WITH REASON.
Rise in Pollination needs due to ever increasing population growth and food production industries, huge bee forage shortages in the whole world, but especially South Africa and dealing with honey which is one op the top 10 most adulterated foods in the world has certainly made for an interesting couple of years.
Since our family has grown to 4, our Overberg Honey Team to 21, we acquired another beekeeping business in Grabouw , we opened 2 more shops and excitedly await the next 10 years.
Blessings has been abundant, but where would we be without our 120 million very hardworking Little Helpers. A very special – Thank You – to them.
It has been a very humbling experience working with these small, seemingly insignificant creatures that not only impacted our lives for the best, but also have the ability to change the world.
– Nadia & Danie Vorster
