Most beekeepers keep bees at home (in their backyard or front garden). This is called home beekeeping and many gardens will accommodate a couple of hives providing they are sited sensibly, but don’t risk problems with your family or neighbours! If for some reason, you can’t participate in home beekeeping because your home doesn’t allow it (you may be in a block of flats, or renting from an unfriendly landlord!) then a careful search of the areas around you could provide you with a suitable site. For example, have a look at nearby farmlands or landowners who have fields or large open areas in their property.
Personally, I know many people in towns and cities who keep bees without their neighbours even knowing, and they often do well because of the flowers in parks and gardens around them. Whatever your situation is, home beekeeping is lots of fun and is immensely rewarding. If you are interested in home beekeeping then here are the things you need to think carefully about before “jumping in”.
Time and commitment
Home Beekeeping is seasonal and the amount of time needed varies. During the summer you should expect to spend an hour per beekeeping hive you own. If you own more than one beekeeping hive then add an extra 20-30 minutes per beekeeping hive per week (for beginners). An experienced beekeeper will need to make much less of a commitment, but it takes about 1 year of beekeeping before you can put yourself in that category.
What is the cost to start?
It may surprise you, but bee beekeeping and home beekeeping is much cheaper than many hobbies. And if you take into account the honey that you might sell, you can actually make this a profitable venture in very little time.
The main costs for starting will be:
Beekeeping Hive: you can make this yourself from scratch if you want to save a bit of money (I show you a step by step in instruction in my book “Beekeeping Made Easy”, but your first beekeeping hive may cost you anything from $50 to $200.
Beekeeping Clothing: you don’t need to go crazy here, so avoid buying into the hype. There is no need for fancy beekeeping clothing that covers you from head to foot. Instead, invest in the basics (you can buy most of those things 2nd hand) and then add to your beekeeping kit as and when you need.
What now?
I would not go charging ahead and buy anything before speaking to a beekeeper, as many people have bought a lot of kit only to find it doesn’t suit them or they don’t need it. Quite honestly, there are a lot of things in the “beekeeping kit” that you could easily do without. Speaking from experience there is lots of equipment that I have bought and only used once!
The two essential things that you need to consider as a first step are:
- How you will obtain your bees
- What beekeeping hive you will choose
In my FREE newsletters, I go into plenty of detail on beekeeping hive types as well as obtaining and breeding bees. As a first step, make sure you sign up to the newsletters. This will give you a 12-Part Mini-course that once you have finished will make you feel much more equipped to make the right decisions about your beekeeping career.
One other thing… beekeepers in general are friendly and helpful, so try and make contact with one and you could probably borrow or improvise if you actually need something. It is my view that beekeeping should be fun, not the chore some people try to make it. I hope these words will enthuse you and encourage you go to the next step.
