As a beekeeper, the hardest work you’ll do will come early on when you’re establishing the hive. Once that’s over, most beekeepers find the process of checking in on their hive and seeing the colony grow rewarding and relaxing! Some beekeepers will develop personal relationships with their hives! After a while, you may develop a sense for when your bees are upset, or when they’ve lost motivation. [2] X Research source
Beekeeping is popular among homesteaders—people who live in a self-sufficient way by growing their own food and making their own goods. Most homesteaders are self-taught, so there’s no reason you can’t teach yourself too.
You can order package bees, or a nucleus hive. Package bees are live bees that you add to a brand new hive. A nucleus is a half-colony that comes with a portion of the honeycombs, which will jumpstart growth. Either option is fine, but package bees are generally considered safer.
If you go this route, you must wear a beekeeper’s outfit and utilize a smoker to prevent the swarm from attacking. Taking a colony away from its hive is going to upset the bees, and you may be stung if you don’t wear any protective gear or use a smoker to cool the bees down. This is illegal in some jurisdictions. Check with your state and city first before you start peeling a bee hive off of a tree trunk. Many wild bees carry diseases, which is the key reason beekeepers typically buy their hives. If you collect multiple hives and one of them is carrying a disease, you may have a disaster on your hands. [6] X Research source
It isn’t normally illegal to keep a beehive in a major city, but you often need to file for permits and you’re typically restricted on how many colonies you can have. This process isn’t typically very tenuous, though. You usually file an application and then an inspector checks out your plans and space. [10] X Research source
Some states treat local honey as a “cottage food. ” Cottage foods are products that you’re allowed to sell without a food or health inspection, and you occasionally don’t even need to register a business. This is why bake sales aren’t treated the same way as food trucks![12] X Trustworthy Source University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension program of the University of California system devoted to educating and improving local communities Go to source
If you don’t want to harvest the honey manually, you’ll also need to buy an extractor. These typically run $100-200, but they’ll pay for themselves if you plan on starting a business! A lot of these supplies are just one-time buys. You won’t need to keep buying bins and smokers over and over again once you’re all set up. There are beekeeping starter kits out there that come with a lot of the supplies you’ll need. These kits are a good option if you’re starting totally from scratch.
Most beekeepers utilize Langstroth hives. These are preassembled “houses” with built in frames for separate hives. The bees will use the individual boards inside of each section to build their honeycombs and produce honey. Beekeepers like these hives because it’s easy to slide each section in and out of the structure to check on the bees. [15] X Research source
Honey sales are regulated the same way as any other business; don’t assume you can just harvest honey and start selling it without registering and creating a business!
Bees perform an important service in the environment, and you’ll be doing your local ecosystem a huge favor if you start keeping bees!
Many beekeepers make deals with local grocery stores to sell their honey on their shelves, or go to farmer’s markets to sell their products directly to the public.
