Hello Everyone!
Two blogs in two months! Wow I am doing well with this year’s goals…
This post means a lot to me, as getting into beekeeping has genuinely changed my life for the better and I couldn’t have got here without a little guidance from others. I found out late last year that the man who gave Kat and I our first experience of being around bees has sadly passed away. Alan was truly a lovely man and his kindness enabled Kat and I to take our first steps on this incredible journey. It’s with him and my incredible mentor Andrea (B4Biodiversity) in my mind that has made me want to impart some of my own knowledge and help guide others on their own path.
Looking at some beekeeping YouTube channels, and blog pages are great, but you can get a bit overwhelmed with what you need to do to be a beekeeper. You have some people saying you MUST do this highly specialised technique or use that expensive piece of equipment, or your bees will swarm, or even die. You also get idiots that try to prove they’re better beekeepers by not wearing a suit, which really wobbles my Camembert! Finally, you get some fools trying to get stung on camera to collect more subscribers, because it’s “funny” ... Only truly excellent beekeepers get stung by accident!
At the end of the day beekeeping can be as simple or difficult as you want to make it. There are some basic pillars that you need to keep in mind that have been the same since humans first started keeping bees. Everything else is just fluff around the dropped toffee really.
Before I go into that though, let’s go over what you need in your life to be a beekeeper.
1. Time
Beekeeping takes a surprising amount of time! Be it building hives and frames, maintaining your apiary, spinning honey and, most time consumingly (that’s a word Kat, shush!), weekly hive inspections.
2. Money
Beekeeping has quite a large up-front cost which can put a bit of a dampener on the whole thing. The term “there’s no money in honey” is not quite true but it takes a while to start breaking even… I certainly haven’t yet. Quick bee maths states that its around £450 for the hive and other equipment and then around £225 for a nuc of bees. Of course, you can save money by making your own hives and collecting a swarm etc but I thought I’d just give a quick example of costs.
3. Interest
This is a big one for me. If you’re just getting a hive to “help the bees” but don’t have any interest in actually looking after them then it’s best to just sponsor a hive or something similar. Sadly, due to diseases in this day and age, we can’t really leave bees to their own devices. Having an interest in the hobby will be the thing that keeps you there after your 40th sting in the same inspection and stop you from walking away, leaving your bees to become a nuisance/danger for everyone in the area.
So, you have all three of the requirements? or at least the first and last? Then the next step is to see if you can stomach being around thousands of flying insects with butt-daggers and a warped view of personal space!
I joke but it’s with a tinge of honesty. Some of us have an inbuilt fear of the buzzing noise a hive of bees makes. You could be absolutely fine with insects and bees in general but when you are faced with a freshly opened hive and their alert thrumming starts, it can twang some hitherto unrealised homosapien fleeing response built into your head. I’ve seen it happen a few times now, where someone was next to me one minute and over the horizon the next. It can also happen the other way round, which is the case with me. I have a fear of spiders and I once vomited when I picked up a slug from our carpet to toss outside (yes… Kat found it hilarious… obviously), but when faced with a hive of bees, I can’t wait to pull up a frame and have a look at what is going on. You never know how you’re going to actually react until you’re into the fray.
So, step 1 on how to become a beekeeper is:
Visit an established hive
I’m not saying walk up to a wild colony and stick your nose in the entrance; what I mean is talk to a local beekeeper and get a guided tour of one of their beehives. Try on a suit, pick up a frame or two, see if you can find eggs, figure out if you can tell the difference between drones and workers and see if you can find the queen. It’s important to make sure that you try to evaluate how you feel throughout the hive visit. If you are scared or grossed out at all then I’m afraid that beekeeping is probably not the hobby for you, sorry… If you are just nervous then don’t worry too much, nerves fade with experience and time. After a year you’ll be screaming “come at me bro!” when you hear a particularly loud colony.
If you’re still interested and in the St Helens area or willing to travel, this year I’m going to be doing beekeeping experiences, where I will be doing 1-2hr sessions for groups of up to 5 people. I’ll give you a mini lesson on what I am looking for in a hive inspection, I’ll teach you how to use a hive tool and how to lift and inspect a frame. When you’re all feeling confident and relaxed, I’ll fit you in sting proof suits and gloves, and we’ll go open up a couple of hives. My main aim is to make you feel as comfortable as possible with handling bees and to get you excited enough to move onto the next step on your beekeeping journey.
Do a beekeeping course
Some of the best beekeepers in the world are completely self-taught, but they have had to learn the same lessons as you would on a course through their own (probably expensive) mistakes.
Most beekeeping associations run beginner courses at the beginning of the year. My local association is running a 2-day course in April where they teach you absolutely everything you need to know to have your own hive. They also give you practical sessions every following Sunday too, which is neat.
I’d HIGHLY recommend you do a beginner course from your local associations as it is a charity and there are hundreds of years’ worth of combined experience available if you ever need any help. You also get liability insurance which is very important if you get some particularly grouchy bees and have some equally grouchy neighbours to boot.
There are private businesses that do beekeeping courses but I’m always a bit sceptical about them, as they usually don’t offer the benefits of joining your association (such as the insurance) in their prices and I can’t imagine they will give you much aftercare when the course has finished. Unfortunately, as associations only do a few courses a year, these businesses may be the only ones available for you when you decide to make the plunge.
Find a mentor
Beekeeping courses fill your brain with the theory behind the hobby and this is essential in my opinion, especially the parts about diseases and swarm prevention. Now you need to get your hands dirty and learn the practical skills required. The 2-hour sessions that associations offer after the course are great to be able to look for answers for some questions but to gain enough experience to be a competent beekeeper you should really get your own hives or find an experienced beekeeper that you can shadow long term.
Either way, the best advice is to find a mentor. It’s always good to have someone that is always reachable that you can bounce ideas or problems off. I had Andrea from B4Biodiversity as my mentor and she has been incredible. I doubt she even counts herself as a mentor to be honest (as I never actually officially asked her to be one…) but she’s always helped me with any issues I’ve been having from the kindness of her heart.
Try to find someone local who you really get on with that has at least a few years’ experience. For the first few months of owning your own hive, you are going to be messaging them quite a lot as bees don’t read books and I swear they try their best to throw you off your game as much as they can. Some associations have a system in place to find their newbies mentors but if they don’t then a post in a local Facebook group wouldn’t go amiss.
Decide on an apiary place
Before you buy anything, you need to make sure you have somewhere to keep it! My garage is filled to the brim with all sorts of beekeeping stuff now (to Kat’s dismay).
That isn’t the stuff I’m on about finding a place for though. If you are wanting to keep bees, then you’ll need to find somewhere to have the hives. Some people opt for putting their hives in their back garden, which is called a ‘home or garden apiary’. Others, like me, opt to pester landowners in the area and bribe them with jars of honey to let us use a bit of their land to keep bees, this is called an ‘out apiary’. An apiary is just the name for an area of land that houses a beehive or multiple beehives. It can be as small as a meter squared or as large as several acres (if you were to have so many hives).
There are good and bad points to both types of apiary and with a little bit of extra work you can get rid of most of the negatives. One thing is necessary for both types of apiary and that is space. Generally, you need around a meter around each hive to manoeuvre honey boxes etc off the brood chamber so you can do inspections. It pays to plan how many hives you want before designating your apiary area and think of potential should you want to expand your beekeeping operation.
A home apiary is really convenient to do inspections. You can get home after work, pop the food in the oven and then trundle down the garden to check on your hives. They are really secure unless you don’t have a fence, so you don’t have to worry about them being knocked over or stolen by numpties. The big issue I have with them is that bees don’t stay in your garden, they fly over your fence, and you have no control over them. This means that your neighbours are going to be blaming you for any misfortune they have with a bee. I also worry that when you have hives in your garden you can’t really enjoy the space as easily. Even the mildest tempered bees will defend the hive if you get too close, now imagine if they suddenly get particularly spicy, which can happen randomly at times.
If you’re going to make a home apiary, then make sure you clear it with your neighbours first. Try sweetening the deal by offering them jars of honey when you finally make some. I’d build a high mesh wall between the apiary area and the rest of the garden. That way the bees will fly straight up rather than to your face while you’re sunbathing in our fleeting warm periods.
An out apiary to me is the best option, although there are still negatives that need to be thought of. First of all, you have to find a land owner that is fine with you setting up an apiary on their land. This isn’t particularly difficult as you can just post on a local Facebook group and generally, you’ll get a few fish biting. The issue is that they will probably want to put you in the middle of nowhere, across untended fields, over a stream, through a full cattle shed and up several flights of stairs. This isn’t great for you as honey boxes, when full, can get super heavy (~15-20Kg) and walking for miles carrying that weight is not really viable, let alone safe. There is a lot of negotiation that you need to do with your landowner such as what modifications you can make to the land presented to you (such as clearing flora and putting up fences), are there any restrictions they have concerning visitation times, how many hives you can keep, among a few other things.
I write a “contract” with everything that is agreed and then send it to them to read and sign if they’re happy. It means everything is out in the open, as clear as day, so there’s no misunderstandings. If you are struggling making your own, then get in touch and I’ll share a template of mine with you.
The main issues with an out apiary are that they are usually away from your home, meaning you have to travel to do your weekly inspections (fuel ain’t cheap!), and a lot of the time they aren’t secure from thieves or other ne’er-do-wells. You can mitigate the latter or reduce bad things from happening by putting up hunting cameras and fencing around the apiary site but that needs to be cleared with the landowner. To me the ability to use my garden as a garden and not upset the neighbours outweighs the issues with an out apiary.
The most important things you need to concentrate on when it comes to any apiary site are:
1. Access to your vehicle
You will want to be able to get your vehicle as close to your apiary as possible, especially when it’s the honey pull and bees are liable to rob out any undefended honey super in minutes. You’ll want to get those supers locked into your car asap. This isn’t much of a problem for a home apiary but just make sure you can get the supers into your shed or garage easily!
2. Forage and water supply
This isn’t just about honey. Your bees need to have enough forage around their apiary to survive. Water is another thing that hives need in abundance. To tell if there is enough forage, pay attention to the bugs around your potential apiary area. If you see lots and lots of bees, then you should be okay. If all you get is flies, then chances are that you don’t have a lot of flowering plants nearby. If the spot is perfect but there’s no forage, maybe work out a deal with the landowner to plant some wildflowers.
3. No hazards
Hazards can be anything from potential flooding risks to livestock blundering through the area and knocking over a hive.
4. Security
As mentioned before, you want to stop people from messing with your hives so make sure they’re out the way if you can and if you can’t then make sure you have cameras or fencing in place. You can get straps that have locks on them these days but if someone is wanting to nick your hive then they’ll just cut the strap off.
5. Neighbours
Make sure anyone that lives in the vicinity is aware that you are wanting to put hives in the area. Give them your number and tell them to contact you if they have any issues. You may not be able to control your bees but you can manage the fallout if anything goes wrong. Most people are understanding and will often joke about getting stung somewhere unfortunate but there are many that hate bugs and you bringing thousands of them to your home is an act of war.
Get yourself some equipment
This is the eye-watering part of the hobby. Beekeeping is a money sink, even for those that are thrifty and either build their own equipment and shop around for the “must-buys”. You’ll also find yourself looking at the sales at the end of the year and remember the fact that you “ran out of equipment this summer and a few other hives might stop that from happening again…” then another few hundred pounds leaves your bank account, and you have to have an apologetic conversation with the wife.
My advice concerning beekeeping is this, you are going to spend a lot of money so make sure you get something that is good and will last a long time. Try to make a plan about how many colonies of bees you want to own and then work back from that. As a minimum, I’d suggest 2 colonies, as you can compare them both as they develop. So many problems encountered in beekeeping can be solved by removing or adding a frame of brood to a hive, best way to do that is if you have a second colony to pilfer a frame from. It also doesn’t take much more time inspecting two colonies instead of just one.
Here's a list of what I would call essentials, everything else, although possibly useful, is probably just fluff:
Bee suit – these can be bought dirt cheap, but sting proof ones are much more affordable these days and they tend to be made with fabric mesh hoods which lasts longer than the plastic stuff. Remember, getting stung doesn’t make you a better beekeeper.
Gloves – I use biodegradable nitrile surgical gloves as I like to have dexterity while I handle bees. This means my hands are vulnerable to stings, but I think it’s worth it. Gloves are useful to give you an extra barrier when the going gets sticky and it means you can wash your hands in bleach water in between hives to prevent disease transfer. You can get sting proof ones but steer clear of the leather gloves, you can’t wash and sterilise them easily.
Hive tool – a hive tool is definitely essential for opening up a hive, prying frames apart and lifting them up out of the box without squishing any bees. They are ridiculously cheap (£2 on ebay) and super easy to misplace around an apiary so get a few of these!
Smoker – I would deem the smoker more essential than the beesuit (controversial I know) but there is nothing as good as a waft of smoke to calm a hive of bees down or get them away from where you want to work. I usually go through smokers at a rate of one a year due to always buying cheap ones that warp or break. I’ve just treated myself to a rather expensive one and the build quality is dramatically different. I’d highly recommend digging a bit deeper than you normally would.
Hives – as I said, I’d get two colonies to start off with so get two hives to house them in.
Nucleus box – Nuc boxes are by far one of the most useful tools you can have in your arsenal when it comes to bee management. You only need the one, but I’d call it an essential in swarm season.
Honey spinner – even if it’s just a 2-frame manual spinner, it’s much easier and efficient to get one to extract honey rather than using the old-fashioned method of cutting out the honeycomb and pressing it through a muslin. I’d suggest getting a spinner with the amount of frame capability as you expect to have maximum number of hives. E.g. max 4 hives so get a 4 frame spinner.
There is so much more you can buy but half of it is gimmicks made to fool newbies. The main thing is to shop around for the best prices online and make sure you discuss anything with your mentor before buying as they’ll know if it’s useful or not. If you’re really struggling to make a decision then wing me a question, I’ll try to give you my best advice =)
Decide on a type of hive
Hives come in all shapes and sizes. There are more gimmick hives than you can shake a stick at. Many of these gimmicks play on the “save the bees” crowd that just want to have bees in their garden but not actually bother with them other than to collect honey to impress their friends and family.
Job one is to talk with your mentor and association about what their standard frames are. It is usually one of these that will be giving you your first nucleus colony, so it’s best to get a hive type that matches theirs. If you’re in the UK then chances are that you will be using National frames for your bees. If you are anywhere else in the world, then chances are you will be using Langstroth frames.
Why does the UK use different size frames to the rest of the world? Many reasons and not many of them are good to be honest, but we are kind of stuck with the national frame now. Of course, there are some people to use 14 x 12 frames, commercial, etc but the safe bet is National in the UK and Langstroth everywhere else. I only sell nucs with national frames so if you’re buying one off me then make sure to have a national hive.
As for material the hive is built from, I’d suggest looking for poly or cedar as they are generally the best. When I started, I did a load of research and found that poly hives were the best when it came to weight and insulation, so I bought a bunch of those hives from Abelo but since Brexit the cost of poly hives has doubled in just 4 years. I mostly do a price comparison now during the sales when I want to buy more equipment and I’ve found that 2nd quality cedar hives are still excellent even though they are cheaper. The benefit of cedar is that it doesn’t need to be painted to have a long life, so that’s money and time saved there.
“Hold on one minute Greg!” I hear you think “what on earth is a 2nd quality?”
Well dear reader, wooden hives come in different grades 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The grading denotes how many knots are in the wood. Knots are generally a weak point in the construction as it’s hard to knock a nail through them and they can sometimes be knocked out by the nail or a jolt, leaving a hole in the wood, which isn’t great for the bees. Fortunately, these days Thornes and a few of the other manufacturers are knocking the knots out and plugging them with filler. It doesn’t look as nice, but it does the job. So, 1st quality has no knots at all and looks pristine. 2nd quality will have a few knots but is perfectly serviceable and is mostly what I aim to get. 3rd quality is pretty knotty… They are fine to use as honey supers during spring and summer when its warm and there’s less rain, but I wouldn’t overwinter a hive in them.
Poly hives don’t really have a grading as such, but it does have some figures of “g/litre” which comes down to how dense the polystyrene is in the box. The higher that number, the stronger the box is. Generally, you don’t want any lower than 80g/L as the polystyrene will start to get too flimsy, like the stuff used in packaging. I hope that’s cleared that up a bit for you. Now time to fill these hives you’ve just bought.
Get yourself some bees!
This is the exciting bit. There are two main ways of filling your hives with bees. You either buy a nucleus colony or fill them with a swarm. I would always recommend buying a nuc from a reputable trader or your local association. Almost every man and his dog are selling nucs now as it’s a quick way for any beekeeper to make some of their initial costs back, but the problem is that not every beekeeper will take the job of creating a nuc and a good healthy queen seriously. Some will just bang a bunch of frames into a nuc box and hope they create a queen that they can sell in a few weeks or have even just captured a swarm and are selling it on, which is absolutely disgusting to do in my opinion (more on swarms in a minute) and really fluffs my spuds! I found out the hard way that this half-arsed nuc building can lead to the colony failing not long after purchasing them. This can lead to you feeling that it’s your fault, which can eventually downward spiral you out of the hobby, if confidence isn’t your strong point.
If you’re new to the beekeeping game, then you want to start with the best colony you can. You want any issues that pop up (and they definitely will!) to have been your mistake, not someone else’s, so you can learn from them. Reputable traders and associations will select specific queens they want to breed from with a number of positive attributes. I personally go for calmness, overwintering capability and honey production when I pick a queen to breed from. They will also make sure the nucs are healthy and have everything they need to expand, as their reputation hinges on it!
The most important part of getting your first bees is to take your mentor with you, or at least someone who has many years of being a beekeeper. If you’re buying a nuc then you want to make sure the queen is “juicy”, the frames are relatively new and undamaged, there are no signs of disease and that they are ready to expand into a hive right away. It’s your money after all, and there are plenty of sellers out there. Make sure you’re happy with the bees you are getting before giving over a penny. I give prospective buyers a tour of my nucs and describe each colony and their queen’s heritage as best as I can. I then let the buyer choose the nuc/s they want to buy from me if any at all. You should be expecting this from anyone you are buying from, it’s definitely a buyers’ market. Another benefit of having your mentor with you is that they will be able to help transfer your new colony into their hive at your apiary if you’re a little nervous.
Swarms are a mixed bag really. You have no idea where they’ve come from. You don’t know their temperament. You can’t tell if they have any diseases. If they’re from a wild colony then chances are they’ll be infested with varroa mites. They have all these possible issues but they’re free so many people risk it rather than fork out for something proper. The first year of beekeeping is fraught with problems and having your colony survive into your second year is actually surprisingly hard to achieve. The survival rate of swarms is less than 25% to begin with so with an inexperienced beekeeper at the helm it reduces even more. I’d recommend only looking into collecting swarms when you’ve had a few years in the hobby and are looking to expand…also… its super fun.
My final word about getting bees is find someone local that has bred local bees. The UK may seem like a small island but we do still have microclimates interspersed throughout. Bees from Cornwall may flourish in the warm weather down south but then really struggle in the damp and cold of Aberdeen. Yes, that is an extreme example, but local bees are the survivors of multiple generations of colonies in your area, they’re best at surviving your winters and foraging the plants near you. It can be super easy to hear about the ‘magical honeybees of Imagination Land’ and think “wow, they sound perfect for me!” only for them to die in a few months because the “rain” in Rainford is duly earned.
Your first year!
Now you have all the gear and thanks to the course you at least have some idea on what to do. “What is next?” I hear you ask eagerly.
Beekeeping is next!
Your first year will be full of trials and tribulations but just take your time and figure it out as you go along. I will always be willing to help any newbie; but I’m not alone, there are hundreds of Facebook pages, forums and honey business owners that will be happy to give you any advice you need.
I’m going to rip the bandage off right now… chances are that you won’t get any honey in your first year and I’d recommend not trying to either. You want your bees to have as much food as possible for winter as their first as a full-size hive is always the hardest. Spend your first year of beekeeping learning how to spot eggs, larvae, pollen and stores quickly. Learn to look for queen cells or other potential problems lurking amongst the frames. Figure out how to light the smoker successfully each time without it going out halfway through a hive (I still struggle with this one!).
You have a lot of basic practical skills to master before you need to worry about how to extract honey and jar it etc. There is no race or finish point to be rushing to, just take your time and learn what you can. I come back to what I stated at the beginning of this post, there are a lot of confusing things online stating “only true beekeepers do this” but to me a person who genuinely cares for the creatures they have chosen to manage is ten times the beekeeper than someone who gloats about harvesting “100Kg of honey from a single hive” in their first year.
I hope you are all safe and well,
Greg
My Beekeeping experiences will be available between April and August, specific dates to come soon.
Great information. Thank you.