I am posting this just in case there are some people out there who might be thinking about beekeeping as a hobby.
I realize that most on this list will not be interested in this article.

Beekeeping As A Hobby

About 40 years ago I was having lunch with a coworker and he was telling me about his son who went off to college and told his father to take care of his beehive he started as a 4H project.  He said he found the bees to be interesting.   I said beekeeping was something I wanted to try.  He said that he knew of a beehive for sale.  That was the start of it.

I have tried some other hobbies but found they didn’t hold my interest.  (Coin and stamp collecting)  As I got further into beekeeping I found there are few hobbies that get you involved in more things than beekeeping.  Of course the first thing you are going to learn about is the bees themselves.  You will learn there are three types of bees in the hive: the queen, workers and drones.  You might learn there are many different species of bees.  You might have thought a honeybee is a honeybee.  A study of all the honeybees and their different traits could keep you busy for a long time. 

Maybe the next thing you find out is you can only eat so many honey sandwiches.  You will be looking for other ways to eat honey.  Putting it in your tea may be one of the first things you think of, but you can substitute honey for sugar in most recipes, which in itself could take more time than you can spare.  And honey can be turned into wine or vinegar.  Wine making with honey can be a sideline with no end as you add fruits or herbs.  Then ageing and drinking your mead will take some time.  Mead may have been the first alcoholic drink man drank.

As you watch your bees coming and going, you will wonder where they are going and what are the sources of nectar and pollen they are bringing in.  Then you will learn more about flowers and trees than you ever thought you would.  Another part of beekeeping you can into that could take up all the time you have. 

Maybe you might decide that you could use more bees to produce more honey.  You could buy more bees or equipment or you could make your own equipment.  Next thing you know you are making a trip to the lumberyard for some lumber, nails, glue and paint.  Maybe you even need some more tools like a nice table saw.  Now you are into woodworking.  Maybe you might want to split your hives to get more bees.  They’re any number of ways to do this.  Books have been written on how to raise your own queens and to split your hives.  You might even get good at raising bees and making hives that you might sell some of your excess.

If you have too much honey for your own use then you have to learn what to do with it.  Of course honey makes a fine gift to friends and relatives.  Maybe you have more than you can give away.  Now you will be into marketing.  You need to learn how to sell your honey.  What kind of honey to sell: small containers, large containers, bears, glass or plastic, comb honey, creamed honey.

Now after getting all this honey you find that after extracting honey you have some beeswax.   What to do with that?  There are all kinds of candles you can make.  There are many uses for beeswax.  You can use it on your shoelaces to keep them from coming untied.  It is used to make some cosmetics like lipstick.  It is used to fill splits on wooden masts on sailing ships.  The list goes on and on.

You could get into religion.  Bees and honey are mentioned sixty some times in the bible.  The Catholic Church used to use only beeswax candles, but they got too expensive.  It was suggested by some that the beeswax candles were symbolic of the Virgin Mary and virgin bees made the beeswax.

Even politics is not exempt.  There is a lot of discussion and action being taken around the world on the use of some insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.  All of which is going to take politics to get solved.  I remember some years ago when my state wanted to make a law requiring inspection of our honey houses.  Since most of us small time beekeepers use our kitchens for preparing honey, this was not a good idea.

As you learn about bees and watch them on flowers gathering nectar and pollen, you will see many other insects and you will learn some about them.  When people find out you keep bees they will think you know about all kinds of flying things; especially hornets, bumble bees, wasps and yellow jackets.  So when they ask you a question you may be inclined to seek the answers.

And just like us honeybees get sick.  They are subject to diseases from viruses, bacteria and funguses.  There are pests that bother them too; everything from microscopic mites, through moths, to bears.  Contrary to popular belief, bears want to eat the larvae and brood and not the honey.  The brood and larvae have more protein.

One day you will be knowledgeable enough that people will ask you to speak to their group or club.  Now you are into public speaking.  You may want to join a beekeeping club.  It is a good thing to do.  There will be people there that you could ask questions.  Or you could be asked to give a class on what you have learned.  Beekeeping is always interesting when talking to other beekeepers because you can 11 different answers from 10 different beekeepers. 

Pollination may be of interest to you.  If you have a few fruit trees you will benefit by having bees to pollinate them.  Maybe there is a farmer down the road who has a small orchard and wants to borrow your bees to pollinate his trees in exchange for some apples in the fall.  You could become so large that you could send a few thousand hives to California to pollinate the almonds. 

Even during war times there is a use for bees.  During WWII there was a shortage of sugar.  Beekeeping was encouraged to produce honey because sugar was rationed.  Wax was most important because it was used to waterproof many things needed for the war effort.  Beekeepers could buy sugar when others couldn’t.  They were also allowed to buy lumber for beehives although it was hard to come by during the war. When the Romans were attacking Turkey, they found a large cache of honey.  It was honey from the Rhododendron, which is poisonous to us but not the bees.  When the Roman soldiers ate the honey they became very sick and were easily defeated.  Also during the past history, beehives were thrown at the enemy causing much confusion.  Before we used metal cartridges in our rifles, we made paper cartridges.  They were coated with beeswax, grease or lard to protect them from the weather.  It also helped when ramming the cartridge down the barrel.

 

Then there is apitherapy.  This is the use of things from the beehive to treat things like disease and wounds.  Honey itself is used to treat colds and those things that go along with the cold like sore throat and coughing.  Honey put on wounds help in the healing.  Bee venom is used to treat autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and arthritis.  Propolis is also used to treat many human maladies such as sores and infections.

The history of bees is interesting.  Since bees have been around for millions of years, their history can be found in the history of the Egyptians and the Greeks.

Everything I have mentioned about honeybees could be expanded to write a book.  I just wanted to point out that I couldn’t think of any other hobby that gets you involved in more things than beekeeping.

Bill Bartlett
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