If you're interested in learning more about Pemberley Honey Farm and our beekeeping adventures, feel free to visit us on YouTube!
If you're interested in becoming a beekeeper, we're working on a full step-by-step guide that will be published soon! For now, read on!
So you want to be a beekeeper
Beekeeping is hard.
There is a lot to learn and a lot to know and a lot of new skills to develop. You will never feel like you know enough and you'll constantly run into new problems that your hours upon hours of research and study and practice never prepared you for.
Beekeeping is painful. You will get stung. A lot. A whole lot. Even if you wear a bee suit. You will itch for days and your arms and hands and face will swell up and itch and burn and drive you crazy. You might even develop an anaphylactic allergy and need to keep an epi-pen handy. You or someone you care about might actually die from said allergy (though this is extremely rare, it's important to keep in mind that this is not a hobby without risks).
Beekeeping is messy. You'll wind up with bits of wax and pollen and propolis all over your yard. Pools of honey in your garage. Bees flying around all over even where they're "not supposed to be". Piles upon piles of dead bees in front of the hive over winter. You'll have bee poo on your clothes and in your hair. Everything in your home will smell like honey.
Beekeeping takes up space. You'll need a place to store hive bodies you aren't using, extra frames, foundation, tools, equipment. It takes a full 10' shed all to itself. And you'll need a place to work to clean up frames, assemble new frames, render beeswax, or extract honey.
Beekeeping is sad. Your bees will get sick. They might die out. You might fight against a disease or pest infestation for weeks or months only to lose in the end. You might have a strong, healthy colony in March only to see them succumb to EFB in April. Your heart will ache and you'll want to give up.
Beekeeping is a commitment. It's time and money and hard work, even when you're busy, poor, and tired. It's not all pretty mini-house in your back yard and easy honey out of a Flow tap.
But
Beekeeping is rewarding.
Beekeeping is relaxing. Watching the bees work, flying in and out of the hive, buzzing around your garden, pollinating your flowers - all brings a unique kind of joy and peace. It relieves stress.
Beekeeping is accomplishment. It's hard work that is its own reward. You feel accomplished when you find a solution to a new problem.
Beekeeping is community. There is community and comradery and friendship and love among other beekeepers, especially among the urban / backyard community.
Beekeeping is educational. You learn to appreciate nature and how complex and fragile and robust and powerful it is. You fall in love with flowers and sunshine and springtime and all of the beauty around you.
Beekeeping is sweet. And yeah, if you're committed and determined and persistent, you'll get honey out of it. Lots of honey. More honey than you know what to do with. Everything in your home will smell like honey.
Saving the bees
If you're investigating becoming a beekeeper out of concern for the environment, there are a few things you should know.
The honeybee kept in apiculture is Apis mellifera, aka the "European honey bee", a species of bee native to Europe and generally believed to have originated in Africa or near east Asia. Depending on the biologist you talk to, Apis mellifera is an invasive species everywhere else in the world, including North & South America, East Asia, Australia, etc. Humans domesticated honeybees millennia ago and are responsible for their spread around the world, and honeybees have been introduced and become established throughout the world for so long that they're generally considered naturalized. However, honeybees still compete with native bee species for habitat and resources in these places where they've been introduced.
Apis mellifera is an important pollinator for many varieties of flowering plant, including many that we eat. That said, depending on your location in the world, your average diet may not contain anything pollinated by honeybees at all. In the Americas, many common table foods like tomatoes, potatoes, squash, peppers, corn, etc are native to the Americas and are primarily pollinated by native bee species. There are over 20,000 species of bee and it's these native species that are the most neglected and that are at the most risk.
Native bees (in North America, where I'm from) include the commonly known sweat bees and bumble bees, and some less well-known species such as leaf-cutter bees, mason bees, carpenter bees, and many MANY others. These bees are quickly losing their habitat to human expansion, with cities and roads, manicured lawns, and gardens full of non-native plants literally starving them to death. But unlike honeybees, there is no established industry tailored to keeping them alive.
While they certainly face challenges, honeybees are not in danger of extinction. But because of our disregard for their habitat, the compounding effects of climate change, and competition from human-introduced honeybees, many native bees are in danger. And while honeybees get all the credit for pollinating our dinner plates, it's the lesser known native bees who do much of the work. If you're interested in taking up beekeeping as an environmental effort, consider instead planting a garden full of plants native to your location and providing locally tailored habitat for the bee species native to your region. Supporting native bee species will be a lot of work, mostly because there aren't mentors and clubs and associations out there to help you learn it. I suggest checking with your nearest universities for information specific to your region and climate and the bees that live near you. This work won't be as visible or as profitable as keeping honeybees, but it's much more necessary.