While I am not aware of any reliable statistics at a level that calls out beekeepers, there are some good statistics on life expectancy by occupation.
Per the UK Office of National Statistics in 2007:- Unskilled manual laborers have the lowest life expectancy at 72.7 for males and 78.1 for females.- Partly skilled manual laborers were next (75.7 and 79.9).- Then Skilled manual laborers (76.5 and 80.5)- Skilled non-manual laborers (78.4 and 82.4)- Managerial/technical (79.4 and 83.2)- Professional (80.0 and 85.1)
In general, longer life expectancy is strongly correlated with more education and more control (or more accurately, perception of control) over your own work.  The ability to avoid occupation-specific hazards also ranks high.  (Even the most self-directed coal miners are at risk of black lung disease.)
My hypotheses:Beekeepers do skilled manual work.  But they also tend to be small business owners with managerial/professional responsibilities.  Owning their own businesses, they have a high perception of control.  The manual labor component implies exercise but (other than some comparatively mild pesticides), we have few of the occupational risks usually associated with agricultural careers.
All that said, we must remember that any apparent effect of beekeeping on life expectancy is likely to be little more than observation bias.  We see and notice old beekeepers, especially ones who are still active.  We do not even hear about the beekeepers who died in their 40s nor, because of our particular interests, do we necessarily notice the old folks who are active but in some other field.

Mike Rossander

   

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