Beekeeping: A Hobby With Sweet Rewards

Beekeeping Today

Beekeeping is suddenly a hot topic — perhaps due to the increasing popularity of homesteading and raising one's own food, or a reaction to the worldwide plight of pollinators, or the desire to connect more closely with the natural world. Local beekeeping clubs and online forums are flourishing, and classes fill up quickly. These are all good signs, because although raising bees is a fascinating, fun and rewarding hobby, it also requires planning, knowledge and a modest investment of time and money to be successful.

One of the biggest challenges for beekeepers in the last decade is the steep rise in the incidence of colony collapse disorder, especially among commercial hives. The winter of 2012-13 was particularly difficult; some beekeepers lost up to half their hives to this disorder, the causes of which are still not fully understood. (More on that later.) It's important that prospective beekeepers go into the hobby with their eyes open to the challenges and seek the help of experienced mentors.

The best way to get started is to take a class or contact a local beekeeping group where mentors will let you watch as they work their own hives. You can read books and blogs to learn as much as you can about their habits, which will affect how you manage your hive. But, beekeeping techniques vary with region, climate and weather — I can't stress enough that new beekeepers benefit from having someone nearby to consult. By exploring the ins and outs of your new hobby in summer, you'll have time to gear up and order your bees for installing next spring.

Consider the up-front cost.

It will run you about $250 for the essentials, including a starter box with frames and wax foundation (called the "hive body"), a bee veil (to protect your head), gloves, hive tool, bee brush and smoker. Most beekeepers start with "package bees" which includes a 3 lb. box containing about 10,000 bees and a mated queen. A package costs about $120. Within a month or so of installing bees, you'll need to add additional boxes — usually one more hive body and one or two shallower boxes for honey, called supers (see note, below). These supplies are one-time costs, assuming the bees thrive and don't need to be replaced. If you hope to harvest the maximum amount of honey, you'll want to look into getting (or borrowing) a honey extractor.

Note: The traditional hive configuration consists of a series of boxes filled with frames and wax foundation, sometimes called the Langstroth movable frame hive. Because it's so common, it's a good choice for beginning beekeepers that want to work with a mentor. An alternative to this system, call the top-bar hive, is becoming more popular with hobby beekeepers around the world. The initial cost is lower, but overall honey production is usually lower, too. Top-bar hives are especially popular with people who are keeping bees to provide pollination for plants, as well as those who don't want to deal with heavy honey supers. Because you generally harvest both the comb and honey, you don't need special extracting equipment.