The Art of Keeping Bees
By Daniel Walker-Hebborn

The process of keeping bees is often referred to as an art since it requires a lot of attention to detail to become successful, and many who are beginning beekeeping learn this valuable lesson the hard way by either a lot of painful stings or dwindling stocks of honey.

The first thing you may need to decide is whether you want your beekeeping to become a business or if it is just to stay a pleasant hobby. Think about your reasons for wanting to start keeping bees, if it is because you are concerned about the fact that around the world many bee populations are decreasing and you want to "do your bit to help stem this trend" then it is likely that it will always remain in the hobby phase. Also you need to consider your surroundings do you have the space for many hives or just maybe one or two. The last thing you want to do is annoy those who live nearby by introducing large amounts of small stinging insects into their environs. You may have a great love of Bees but believe me this won't be shared by all your neighbours.

Another good tip is to find a beekeeping group nearby, just do a search on-line for this with something like Google maps centered on your location. This will give you a visual representation of just where you can find these local groups. Also by playing around with search terms you can find local suppliers of the essential equipment that you will need to get you started. Things such as your first hive, a beekeeping suit and a centrifuge for extracting the honey. Talking with the other members of a beekeeping group will help you find out about any rules or restrictions your local authority may have in place regarding the keeping of bees. Talking of space you will also need to consider the amount of room needed to store all of the afore mentioned equipment.

The quickest way to get started is to buy your bees, you will need a queen and enough bees to get a hive started. You can even get these through the post. Your local beekeeping group can also be a source of your first bees. Often an established apiarist will have a hive that is ready to swarm, this happens when a second queen is produced. You could of course be extremely lucky and just come across a swarm as I did recently.

I realize that not everyone will be that fortunate but by doing some planning now before you start down the road of becoming a fully fledged beekeeper you will save yourself a lot of hassle in the future.


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