How to Start Beekeeping

To me, honey bees are like the dogs of the insect world. They are fuzzy, make you smile whenever you see them, and are usually docile (USUALLY). Their level of cooperation is fascinating to most people, but the possibility of a sting most often keeps curiosity from proceeding further. As a former avoider of bees who overcame her flight-or-flight response, I can attest that a good amount of courage is required to entertain the idea of keeping bees. This leads me to my first point on how to start beekeeping.

Get Acquainted

A huge difference exists between feeling like you can handle being around thousands of buzzing, stinging insects and actually being around thousands of buzzing, stinging insects. Gaining an audience with the bees is the only real way to know how you’ll fare.

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Plenty of beekeeping associations exist that might offer a tag-along event for interested newbees. I found a local beekeeper using WWOOF, a work exchange website that connects travelers and people interested in farming to farmers who offer accommodation in exchange for part-time help. What I thought would be a month-long stay to learn the ropes of beekeeping turned into a years-long relationship. If neither of those options pan out, there surely is a beginner beekeeping experience class that offers an experience or taster day for a fee.

The Skills Involved

if you want to know how to start beekeeping, there are as many ways to keep bees as there are beekeepers. Don’t get bogged down in the weeds of information. Everyone has their own methods, but generally, there are skills that every beekeeper needs to know to be successful. This list is what I consider to be the bare essentials:

Learn how to read a frame. Identify the queen, workers, and drones. Distinguish between honey and brood cells of queens, drones, and workers. Spot larvae and eggs.
Determine if the hive is queenright. Notice which bees are doing what; pay attention to their temperament and how they respond to you being in their home.
Become aware of the pests and pathogens that are threats to honeybees. Varroa mites, chalkbrood, and foulbrood are the primary threats, though others exist. Understand what they are, how to identify them, and the treatment options available.
Understand swarming and what you can do to prevent it. Ideally, learning how to split a hive will prevent this.

What is the Why?

Before we get into how to start beekeeping, the why is just as important. Why you want to keep bees matters if you want to be successful. There are misconceptions about the time, effort, and resources it takes to set up and maintain hives, so getting clear on why you desire to keep bees can save you from investing in something you won’t be able to see through. As a somewhat romanticized hobby, the reality of beekeeping is far from the expectation of output with little input.

SAVE THE BEES

If you want to “save the bees,” beekeeping is not it. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are 1 species of 20,000 (and counting) bee species worldwide. Honey bees are managed agricultural animals in the same category as chickens and cows. If you are based in the US as I am, they are not even native!

Not much data exists on native bee declines because they haven’t gotten enough press, and therefore funding, to be properly researched. The little research we have is haunting; The Center for Biological Diversity’s Pollinator Report states that 1 in 4 native bee species is at risk of extinction.

She Works Hard for the Honey

If you’re in it for the honey, you might be better off just buying from a local beekeeper. A lot of inspecting, heavy lifting, troubleshooting, trial, and error before honey comes in to sweeten the deal.

Beekeepers only take the excess honey, so your bees need to build up their own stores first. How much honey you get depends on where the bees are located. If the bees have a short season or there aren’t a ton of sources for them to collect nectar, it will take them longer to build up a store that you can dip into.

Bench Pressing Bees

Speaking of heavy lifting, much of beekeeping is just moving heavy stuff. Nearly every step of beekeeping requires lifting. As the season progresses and the bees build out the hive and stock it with honey, everything gets heavier. It’s not uncommon to have honey supers (the smaller boxes usually called mediums) weigh 50 lbs. when they are full of honey. You don’t need to lift it above your head and spin it on one finger, but you should be able to comfortably lift and move hive parts around without dropping them or throwing your back out.

Stings

As a beekeeper, you are going to get stung. Just one hive can have up to 80,000 bees, it is an inevitability. The numbers are not in our favor; if you set off one little lady’s radar, she is coming for you. For most, getting stung is painful and it sucks, but you get over it. For a few, it could be death. Before becoming a beekeeper, I highly recommend knowing the status of your allergies to bee venom. If you’ve never been stung, you could get an allergy test where you’ll be injected with a bit of venom and monitored for reaction. Or you could find out the old-fashioned way.

Final Considerations

Beekeeping is not a cheap hobby. Startup costs differ depending on how many hives you’re setting up, what kind of equipment you buy (new or used), and how popular beekeeping is in your area. When I started keeping hives, I bought my bees and equipment from a lady looking to move and needed to sell her already-established colonies. I got two established hives, each with two deeps and a honey super, boxes and frames for a third colony, two beekeeping suits, and all the other tidbits I needed like hive tools, a smoker, a mite treatment kit, etc. It cost me $800 and that is the very cheap end of the spectrum.

Keep Beekeeping

Finally, it shouldn’t just be about how to start beekeeping, but how to keep beekeeping. It’s discouraging to lose a hive and honey bees have unfortunately high attrition rates. The Bee Informed Partnership’s 2022-2023 survey showed that beekeepers lost 48.2% of their managed colonies over the year. Different factors play into it, but Varroa, weather, and queen issues were the main causes of losses.

I recommend getting two hives to start. The risk still exists that you’ll lose both hives, but two fair much better than one. If only one hive survives, splitting the hive the following season will regain your loss. If any resources from the failed colony exist, they become available for the new hive. Just be extra sure the reason for the colony’s demise wasn’t pesticides/viruses/fungus as you don’t want to put infected frames of honey into a healthy hive.

If after reading, you’ve decided Beekeeping is still your next pursuit, you can read about beekeeping equipment in this article.

Wondering how to start beekeeping without thinking about where the bees will come from is putting the cart in front of the horse. Hopefully, you’ve found a beekeeping association and learned enough that you feel comfortable branching out on your own. Ideally, it would be fair for you to ask for nuc the following spring if you’ve put in enough work (discuss this with them in advance). You might ask if you can purchase a nuc from them as well. Regardless of who gives you or sells you bees, obtaining local bees may be the difference between failure and success. Local bees are adapted to the climate and conditions. Even if just the queen is imported, it won’t take long before every bee in the colony is replaced by her offspring.