ROMAN PROŠEK

Roman arrived to Australia on New Year 1963.
He started with his bees in 2008.
He has learnt beekeeping as a child and in Australia he learnt from Internet as well.
He has his own label named Čebela (The Bee).
When he started with the bees he had 9 beehives, but now he has 2.
The type of bees he has is Ligurian.
All his bees feed in the surrounding gardens.
They are in their permanent beehives in winter.
Roman’s honey harvest is about 60 kg per year.
The honey his bees produce is mixed natural garden honey.
Roman gives honey to family and friends.

He tells about his passion:
“I always loved bees and when I retired from fishing, I decided that one of my hobbies would be working with bees.
I have now one ‘Flo-Hive’, which took 18 months to produce and still not convinced that it is a good invention. I still prefer the traditional hives, because I believe one has more personal interaction with the bees.
Bees are very fascinating creatures.

My great pleasure is watching my bees in our big yard”.”
By Roman Prošek and Draga Gelt

More about Ligurian bees and Kangaroo Island propolis:
(Adapted from: http://www.nativefoodandwine.com/features-journal/the-ligurian-bees-of-kangaroo-island.html)
The first Ligurian bees to make the 9,500 mile (15,250 kilometre) trek from Europe to the newly formed colony of South Australia were imported by the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures from Bologna, Italy. 
Some sources state that the bees were not directly imported from Bologna, Italy, but were sent from Brisbane, Queensland by Chas Fullwood.
Fullwood arrived in Brisbane from London (having changed ships in Melbourne and again in Sydney) aboard the Alexandra on 29 October 1880, thus heralding the first successful introduction of Ligurian bees into Queensland.
 
In the early days of the colony the mainly English, German and Italian arrivals were mostly farmers, stockmen and a few were beekeepers.
The person who brought the first Ligurian bees to Kangaroo Island has been traced by author/beekeeper Peter Barret who credits August Fiebig with establishing the first apiary in 1881.
A closer look at the historical records of the time seems to indicate that all of South Australia, not just Kangaroo Island, was crawling with beekeepers. Enough that they had the amassed political clout necessary to have Kangaroo Island declared a bee sanctuary way back in 1885.
In so doing they assured the purity of the Ligurian bee strain on the island thus making Kangaroo Island, South Australia, the oldest bee sanctuary in the world.   

A benefit of isolation is that the Kangaroo Island bee colonies have never been exposed to other common diseases and bacteria that attack hives.
Early research results show that propolis taken from the hives of Kangaroo Island is high in Resveratrol, the mysterious “French Paradox Medicine” – is the observation of low coronary heart disease (CHD) death rates despite high intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. The French paradox concept was formulated by French epidemiologists³ in the 1980s.
Resveratrol is a naturally occurring stilbene that is an effective antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and has been effective in the treatment of tumors. Additionally, the presence of tetrahydroxystilbene has been found in Kangaroo Island propolis and only in Kangaroo Island propolis. This is significant because the tetrahydroxystilbene in conjunction with Resveratrol is so far unique in all of nature.

Photo Gallery For enlargement click on the photo Photo – Kirstin and Roman Prošek