Brendan Ashley Cooper’s connection with beekeeping goes back to his early years at Oude Raapkraal, his family’s farm just below a mountain pass in the Cape Peninsula, where his grandparents, uncles, and mother have kept bees since the 1940s. Surrounded by bee lore from childhood, Brendan’s growing interest in beekeeping became evident during show-and-tell sessions at school, where he proudly displayed old bee frames, smokers, and hive tools. As a boy, he endured bee stings as an inevitable part of life, whether from mowing near hives or stepping on the occasional bee – a foreshadowing of the dedicated beekeeper he would become.

In 1994, Brendan’s path took him to overseas, where he worked with a local beekeeper. There, the rhythm of agricultural life really ignited his passion for beekeeping. Upon his return to South Africa, he started with a single hive, slowly expanding to 10, then 100, and eventually over 2,500 hives. Fuelled by resourcefulness and sheer grit, he built his business – Oude Raapkraal Honey – one hive at a time, using equipment crafted in his grandfather’s workshop.