How many beekeepers does it take?

There are about 50 thousand beekeepers in Poland. The number of bee hives increased from 1.09 million in 2006 to 1.125 million in 2011. The structure of apiaries in Poland is dominated by small apiaries – up to nine hives, representing more than 70% of the apiaries. The apiaries having from 10 to 49 hives represented almost 25%, while more than 5% of all apiaries had 50 or even more hives.

Statistics show that the number of colonies and the number of beekeepers in Canada have declined from 700 thousand hives and 20 thousand beekeepers in 1985. The Honey Council of Canada (2011) reports that there are approximately 7,000 beekeepers in Canada operating a total of 600,000 colonies of honeybees, 80% of which are commercially operated while the remainder are run by hobbyists.	

Using these data, an estimate of 100,000 beekeepers North America seems reasonable, given that there are about 3 million colonies. How many of these are serious beekeepers? Well, you can subtract a few hundred that are investing in bees to get some sort of tax write off, or to lose some inheritance money in sure fire way, but anyone who takes on hives with the intent to learn about them and keep them alive, has a degree of serious that surpasses yard gnome collectors at least. 

Pete

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