So, how/why did you get started in beekeeping?

[Hobie]

There are probably as many answers as there are beekeepers. Just wondering.

I started because I had a wild colony in my barn wall that had to be removed, and I did not want to kill them. So I decided to take a class and learn how to remove and take care of them in a more convenient location.

[BjornBee]

On one of our trips to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., I watched a demonstration they were providing put on by a local beekeeper. After 3 hours of asking questions, I went home that fall and ordered two bee books and ordered bees the following spring. I did not realize then, what it has turned out to be now. Its been fun and an adventure. I love gardening and the outdoors, and this just seemed like something I had to try.

[beecron]

I had a friend who went to a local beekeeping seminar in about March one year. He was telling me all about the whole world of bees and beekeeping that he had learned. I grew quite interested and began researching it myself pretty intently. By the end of April I had my first two hives up and running. The funny thing about the whole situation? That was about 6 years ago and he never did get any hives. *$%@ him for getting me hooked on this and then backing out himself! ;)

[tileguy]

My dad had bees when I was a teen and his best friend had bees, we lived in Ridgecrest Ca. Being we lived in the Mojave Desert we had lots of room.
I always wanted my own bees but it never happened, so now 35 years later I have my own girls and they are a real pleasure.
I might have felt diff. if I startedout with some ticked off girls but I can walk in front and sit next to them and they dont seem to mind... *for now* :D
T.G.

[Jeffzhear]

In the 60's thru the 80's my Dad had a big orchard of fruit trees. He knew the value of honeybees and kept them....I developed a keen interest and have kept them since, with the exception of my time served in the USN and college years.

[cozybldr]

I blame it on Mother Earth News. They ran an article on Beekeeping Basics. Then the news comes about Pennsylvania losing 85% of the hive, feral and domestic. Well, I saw a threat to the food chain. Only bad thing was that I tried to start this in April. Let's say thank heavens for ebay. Now I have a hive that is going fairly well and I have 2 outlying yards lined up. Life is good. :)

[spunky]

I garden and I thought having some hives around while I putter in the yard would be neat.
I enjoy watching the bees; and they are real conversation starters for people who drive by, or people I work with.

[George Fergusson]

I was looking through a copy of Uncle Henry's (a swap/sell guide popular in the Northeast) and came across an ad for "5 frame carniolan nucs, $70" and thought to myself....

. . o O ( what on earth is a carniolan nuc? )

This happened at a time in my life when I was trying to pick up the pieces of what remained of my life after a long period of um... poor decisions? bad investment? Dunno what to call it. When I look back now I refer to it as "the bad years".

And the rest as they say, is history.

[rancidgoat]

When I was a kid a local honey producer kept several hives on my god parent's farm. Through him I got hooked on local honey and just watching the bees. My parents were each first generation "off the farm" and went back as soon as they retired from real (read financially viable) jobs. I'd love to be a farmer myself but that's not in the cards (again reference financially viable) . Bees let me contribute ever so slightly to agriculture and if all goes well I'll be back to having local honey in a few months. Thirty years have passed since I sat in the truck and watched and I can still waste away a good chunk of an afternoon just watching them.

R.Goat

[Eyeshooter]

Thirty plus years ago, Mother Earth News always had great articles about beekeeping and I always thought someday... Three months ago, my wife mentioned bees which made me wonder if MEN was still publishing. Found 'em online and there was another excellent article about beekeeping that mentioned Beesource.com. Hived my first 2 packages yesterday.

[stoweski]

My significant other had been tossing around the idea of getting chickens. After reading the bee article in Mother Earth she mentioned the idea to me. I have a 1000 sq ft. garden and have had problems with pollination. So, after discussing the good and the bad of both 'pets' we figured that the bees fit our lifestyle better. As a matter of fact we just hived our first package of bees yesterday. :)

To top it all off we purchased a second hive and will be headed back next week to pick up another package. I figured that if we're going to get dressed up and head out to work on one hive why not make it two?

So, we're enjoying our new adventure even though it's only a little over 24hrs. old. We've spent a couple of hours outside watching the hive so far. I have a feeling I'll be setting up a lawn chair out there soon! :)

If it wasn't raining and the red sox weren't on I'd be out there watching them right now! :D

Keith

[KQ6AR]

Hi,

I'm 48 and have always been fascinated by bees. For some unknown reason my wife has developed an interest. We have bought a few books & joined a local bee club. Hopefully she will be studied up & ready before next spring, because I'd like this to be a joint adventure.

Dan

[phil c]

I have always been involved in the outdoors. spent alot of time on my aunt and uncles farm when I was a kid. Always into hunting fishing ect. I remember being facinated watching bees and other insects growing up. When my oldest sister got married her husband had a couple of hives, I thought they were neat. Time went on and I got a couple of degrees, Biology and Conservation Management, once again alot of involvement into the outdoors.
Several years ago a friend got into beekeeping, and went on to start teaching bee classes at our local nature center. 5 years ago my wife and I were able to purchase our 10 acres, and I started bugging my friend about putting a few hives on my property, he always said no, I would have to take his class and get my own. last year I did it I started his class and got 2 hives. Got a great harvest last year and now I'm hooked!

When I told my wife I was getting into beekeeping she rolled her eyes and said "Theres another of your d@mn dizzy ideas" So my apiary was named Dizzy Daddy Honey"

Now I have my 7 yr. old twin girls that like to put on the veils and come out and watch the bees! I'm gonna get them hooked too!

Sorry to ramble but I love my bees!

[peletier]

I was looking for a unique Christmas gift for my wife. She has talked about raising bees for years so I bought a "kit" and gave it to her on Christmas morning. She wore the veil and gloves all day. Bought a package that spring and have twelve hives now. We share this terrific hobby.

[mike haney]

i personally had (have) a burning desire for independance coupled with a homestead that HAD to support itself led logically to beekeeping. found someone getting out, bought 3 hives, and was off. i still find many people getting "out" and make pocket money selling thier excess stuff. please wear your viels as most of my stuff comes from beekeeps with limited experience who get by bare in the spring flow and have a REALLY bad experience later and give up-occassionally after killing thier BAD bees. good luck,mike

[iddee]

30 plus years ago a fellow truck driver came by my house and asked me to co-drive with him for a couple of weeks. After 16 days, 24/7, we had moved 2500 hives from Wis. to Fla. A few more trips like that and the return trips in the spring, I had began my own beekeeping.

[livetrappingbymatt]

It started as a joke! A friend said one day "when I get old I'm going to get some bees" Well I bought him a hive,learned enough to get myself in trouble and now he runs a few hundred hives.Me I still like the few that I keep they teach me,humility and the rewards of honest sweat!
bob Evans

[BigDaddyDS]

After working for years in real estate, I realized that I didn't really have a plan for retirement. So, I took stock of what I had to work with. One thing that I had going for me is a 70 acre family farm that was planted in clover.

My first thought was planting hardwood trees, but harvest wouldn't come for 30 years or better.

Then I went to a country fair where a guy named Frank (whom I've only seen again once) spoke about beekeeping, and I spent the better part of the afternoon picking his brain. A couple local beekeeping meetings later and someone getting out of beekeeping offered to sell me their bees and all their equipment in a package deal. The rest is history...

So, beekeeping for me is an investment in my retirement! (And, I've never worked harder in my life! And if I EVER find that Frank guy again...)

DS

[cow pollinater]

My wife runs a small scale farm stand(which means I work my butt off to garden for other people). I bought one package of bees to help with pollination not really understanding what I was getting into.
I've since had to cut back on the stuff that was bee-pollinated and increase the rest of it and now I'm trying to expand the exploding bee population so that I can eventually quit my real job and start a pollination service.

[Camp9]

My brother who was a comercial beekeeper in Wisconsin gave me a hive so I could have an FFA project, not only did I start getting stung but also got hooked.

Camp

[ekrouse]

When I was 15 back in 1974 I thought beekeeping would be interesting, so my mother gave me a book... "Beekeeping: The Gentle Craft" by John F. Adams. That got me hooked, so a local beekeeper in Albuquerque, NM (Mr. Moses down on North 4th St.) took me through a couple of his hives one day. That got me over the "fear factor". I ended up buying a couple of hives from him that summer and taught myself everything by reading. No Varroa, No SHBs, No AHBs. Those were the days. Never got much honey down along the Rio Grande in the heart of the high desert, but always read about those huge harvests in New York and Ohio along with the pictures of 8 foot high hives in "American Bee Journal" and "Gleanings in Bee Culture" (yes, back when it still had the "Gleanings" prefix).

Stopped beekeeping for about 15 years as I moved around the Northeast, until I got married and settled in upstate Central New York. The rest is history. Now my kids help me with the bees starting around age 2. And I'm grateful for all the knowledge I have gleened on this website. Everything seems to have changed since the 1970's (except the Walter T. Kelly catalog which looks identical other than the higher prices and the date on the cover!).

-ekrouse

[Dr.Wax]

A couple of years ago I began looking into the true financial picture of the U.S. and was disturbed by what I learned. Knowing that history tends to repeat itself I began preparing for the next Great Depression. Even if I'm wrong I've acquired a fascinating hobby and made new friends.

If I'm right I will have honey to sell or barter, wax for candles/barter and with honey comes the opportunity to make mead (honey wine) and alcohol will always be in demand.

My father even became a beekeeper to my surprise and that has brought us closer together and next year I plan to sell a few nucs and raise my own queens. I want to learn all I possibly can about beekeeping because caring for living creatures is a great responsibility.

[Joseph Clemens]

When I was five years old I was playing barefoot on my grandfather's clover lawn. I stepped on and was stung on the foot by a honeybee. I remember, my foot swelled up and hurt quite a bit, but I really wanted to know what had caused this hurt. My grandfather answered my questions about honeybees. Later, while on a second grade, class library trip I found a book about honeybees. I was hooked - I started catching them in my hand while they were foraging for pollen and nectar. I learned where there were feral colonies in trees and buildings, where I would spend many hours of my spare time watching them. Our school principle, an amazing woman, noticed my interest, gave me a copy of the boy scout merit badge book about beekeeping, and arranged for my father and I to tour two local commercial beekeeping operations.

I began saying how I wanted Santa to bring me beehives for Christmas - and he did, bring a beginners kit. I had to wait until I was ten years old (1966) before I got bees to put into my new hive (while I waited I could still visit a local beekeeper and watch him work his hives). I've lived in many places since then, and kept a few hives in most of them. If I couldn't keep my own, I would visit other's bees or watch feral bee colonies. It is only in these past ten years that I've began multiplying the number of colonies I'm working with, before that I would only work with a maximum of about six.

[Aisha]

I started keeping bees because I heard about CCD in the news last year.

I never knew anyone who kept bees but I was always fascinated by bees when I was a kid. The thought of a world without bees was really frightening. My great-grandfather kept bees in Europe and in the U.S., but he died when I was an infant.

I love beekeeping. I think I may have convinced or inspired a few friends to start keeping bees soon too.

[ealldredge]

When I was 12, I had a boy scout leader that got a hive for one season so that our group could earn the beekeeping merit badge. One season was enough for him but we earned our badge. I was fascinated but really didn't do anything about it.

Fast forward 25 years and I noticed how much the bees affected the raspberries in my garden. That got me thinking... and remembering... and I then saw a pbs special last summer that featured among other things how farmers in some areas of China have resorted to hand pollinating the pear trees because the bees are gone. I mentioned to my wife that I thought it would be fun to put a hive in the garden and to my delight she was all for it! We put a package in the garden a little over 3 weeks ago and it seems to be doing well. My 11 year old daughter lays down on the ground in front and just watches them come and go. Now there are 2 lawn chairs out there. I love it. So far, it's all about learning about the bees and the honey will be the bonus. Here's to hoping a few stings won't deter us.;)

[Barry Digman]

When I was 15 back in 1974 I thought beekeeping would be interesting, so my mother gave me a book... "Beekeeping: The Gentle Craft" by John F. Adams. That got me hooked, so a local beekeeper in Albuquerque, NM (Mr. Moses down on North 4th St.) took me through a couple of his hives one day.



Moses Kountry Store is still down there on 4th Street.



Founder
BEULAH MOSES -- and her late husband started Moses Kountry Health Food Store almost 30 years ago. Back then Health Food Stores were not very popular. We spent a lot of time fighting the FDA in order to stay in business. Thank God we won a lot of the battles. Serving people is our business. It has been hard work, but we consider it a labor of love. Beulah, also served on the Board of Rocky Mountain Nutritional Foods Assn. for a few years.

http://www.moseshealth.com/retailer/store_templates/shell_id_1.asp?storeID=1L6F7JS9PSJ68GRQ67QLL5B6KP0 6D7K8

[indypartridge]

When my daughters were younger, one year we did a homeschool curriculum that was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books. In "Little House in the Big Woods" there's a chapter "Pa and the Bee Tree". So that meant a unit study on honeybees. My wife convinced me to take off work one afternoon and take the kids to tour a local "honey farm". For my kids, it was interesting, but they quickly went on to the next chapter. For me, I've been stuck on that same unit study for several years now!

[dragonfly]

I needed my garden pollinated, and I think that hand-pollination by humans is an inferior method. The old man who lived next door to me (when he was alive) used to keep bees, but his bees were killed out (probably by mites), and he was too old and too ill to really tend to them anymore.

[kc in wv]

About 30 years ago I mentioned I would like to try beekeeping. My Mom told my brother-in-law and he brought me a hive. ( I didn't know he kept bee's).

When the traceha mites hit, it put my brother in law out and he never tried it again. I gave him a hive 2 years ago to get him back in, but he never touched them.

[bwyatt]

My Dad kept bees off and on since he was a kid.
I was 12 years old in 1959 and I found a swarm in an apple tree pretty low to the ground. I told dad I wanted them. They were solid black and smaller than the Italians that dad kept.
He said they would be mean and I wouldn't want them. He also said that they were German bees.
I didn't listen and just had to have them cause they were only about 5 feet off the ground.
He helped me and we put them in a hive.
They were really mean so we didn't work them all summer except to put more supers on.
They made 2 mediums full of honey that first year. We waited til it was cold to harvest cause they were so mean.
Been keeping bees off and on ever since. This last time since 1992.
I always try to keep a dozen hives or so now.

Bill

[mlewis48]

My Grandfather always had a hive or two that were his pride and joy. I used to love watching him work his hives. I wanted one but never had the place for one. 20 years later, my Uncle talked my brother and me into trying it. We got 3 nucs and struggled to make it work. With a lot of help from a friend, they took off. Before the season was over, we had 8 hives. I just wish that I would have found this earlier. We now have 31 and if I have my way that number will double in a year or two. I never thought that you could get so much enjoyment out of 1,000's of stinging bugs flying around your head. There must be some kind of addiction to venom!
Marcus

[Budster]

I've always had an interest in getting into beekeeping, and about 3 - 4 years ago I was watching "Dirty Jobs" where Mike Rowe helped with a bee removal in one episode, and in another episode, helped remove and extract suppers. I figured I wasn't getting any younger and figured I'd better get going if I wanted to try it out. I bought up enough supplies to get 1 hive going and posted to swarm lists... Here I am 3 years later with 6 healthy hives. Now, it seems, I am enjoying it more and more. Nobody ever told me that once you get more bees, that it seems that you are pulling your credit card out all the time! ;-) Always needing more supers, foundation, frames, nails, etc... Its never ending. Kinda like a crack addiction I suppose! I do wish I would have started earlier though.

[Dan Williamson]

Dad got bees when I was 12 years old. I was the only one out of 6 kids that really got into it. Worked bees until I was around 20. Folks moved while I was away at college and I didn't have a place to put bees until 4years ago. Currently have around 56 soon to be over 100 with splits in a few weeks.

[Ross]

I always had ant farms and such when I was a kid. Later, in college, I kept aquariums. I also had a snake and a few other critters. A few years ago I learned that a co-worker kept bees. I bugged him about it until he told me to buy some woodenware and he would get me started. I started with 3 hives, one with a laying queen, one with a virgin, and one with a queen cell. I also found this site. 5 years later I have 50 hives and growing.

[LtlWilli]

Winter before last, I noticed that bees were going thru the cola cans that we save for the church money drives. Now, I'm the kind of guy will step over most insects, instead of smashing them. That about says it all there. So...I looked up bee feeding , and began to put out sugar water for them. On every warmish day, they would come in ever larger numbers...I decided to become a beekeeper, because watching them, and realizing I was helping The Lord take care of his creatures gave me a good feeling. I built several hives from plans off the internet, and had all the pieces set up on our side porch---One morning that spring , I went out to find the entire porch area just black from bees in the air. I quickly slapped together the boxes they were choosing, and I was hooked for good. Now, I have 8 working hives and hope for a swarm or so this season.
This is as much a joy as it is a hobby to do, and as long as I live, the bees up on this hill will be taken care of. Without great expectations or fanfare, they will be welcome here.

[Docking]

18 years ago my grandparents had a colony of bees build in their house. My dad cut the colony out and played with them for about a year. I can remember slipping out and opening the inner cover just to see them work... well last summer I noticed a posting in the local paper about someone wanting to buy swarms. Got me interested. When my uncle told me there was a hive in an old water tank.. well now I'm hooked. did the cut out this spring and just did my second cut out 2 weeks ago. I love it.:)

[B. Haning]

As a teenager I used to spend summers on my Grandma's farm northeast of Tulsa. My uncle on the farm found a swarm of bees and asked if I wanted to help him hive them. That summer I contacted another uncle that worked for the USDA at the Madison, Wisconsin Bee Lab. (lots of beekeepers in the family) He sent me articles on beekeeping and encouraged me to keep the swarm when I went home. The bees overheated in the trunk of the car and all died, but I was hooked. I bought a swarm from a guy in Oklahoma City, but it died because I didn't feed it enough syrup. The next year I bought two established hives. During college I increased to twenty hives. In 1988 the varroa mites reduced my numbers to zero. I salvaged enough combs for 8 hives and bought nucs from Curtis Meier at Dadants in Paris, TX to start over. I keep 6 to 8 hives now. I wish my kids were interested, but I can't even bribe them to help with the bees!

[Gene Weitzel]

Both of my mother's grandfathers kept bees, so I always had an interest in it and entomology in general since I was very young. Since about the second grade, my leisure reading material has primarily consisted of Entomology texts or Ichthyology texts, with a fare amount of Ornithology thrown into the mix (I have profitably raised both tropical fish and parrots in years past, so I guess bees are a natural third endeavor that has grown out of my studies). Four or five years ago I was complaining to my wife about how poorly my cucumbers were filling out and I needed some bees. She agreed to allow me to get a "few" colonies, so the next spring I bought six packages. By August I had lost them all to SHB, but undeterred I started doing swarm retrievals and cut outs. Well, long story short, I now have four out yards and 75 colonies at last count. If things keep on pace, I am projecting to be at 100+ colonies by the end of this season! Oh, and the cucumbers? I don't seem to have much time for the garden now a days, so you will have to ask my wife whats going on there now! LOL

[Jethro]

Wanted my 2 boys to have somthing to do besides the GAMEBOY and every other system. So two years ago I bought them each a hive, wife would not let me get one for the daughter. We are now at 12 hives.

[Budster]

Wanted my 2 boys to have somthing to do besides the GAMEBOY and every other system. So two years ago I bought them each a hive, wife would not let me get one for the daughter. We are now at 12 hives.

Took my 10 year old daughter on her first swarm call the other day. I was in heaven!!!

[noelb]

Had a boxed swarm in the back yard. My brotherinlaw, "the hobby apiarist" never moved it and someone had to look after them. I stepped up to the challenge. I was kind of scared at first and have made some really bad mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes don't we? Have a strong healthy hive of bee's even though I have probably killed their queen two or three times and even the beautiful Carniolan Queen I purchased. They seem to be good workers but we have had a dry hot summer with only enough food to keep them alive. We are in to winter now but some mild sunny weather has the plants thinking spring has arrived. Bees are busy working.

cheers

Noel.

[Jas0n Bresson]

I had a sinus infection in the winter of 07 and the doc told me to give up caffine until I got better. I started drinking herbal tea with store bought honey as a substitute.After reading the label and wondering were it all came from I decided to do alittle research and one thing led to another and I was hooked. 3 hive 1st year and now 10 this year. What a great hobbie.

[NeilV]

Two years ago, my wife went to the State Fair, where the local bee club had a booth. It was just for my birthday, and she though beekeeping classes would be an original birthday gift. I got the bee addiction in a big way. She has more than once said that this was the stupidest gift that she every bought for anybody at any time (even though she has admitted that she sorta likes having bees).

ndvan

[notaclue]

No one in my family kept bees. When I was in the Cub Scouts, and finishing up my Bear rank so I could get ready for Lion (yeah that far back) a District Jamboree was held in the our laundry mats parking lot. There was an Eagle scout with an observation hive that he made while earning his Beekeeping Merit Badge. I was fasinated and hung around a long time watching them and pestering him. He was good-natured about it and said he would be happy to help me get started. We lost touch and of and on over the next fprty years I ran into beeks that said the same. Finally about four years ago I wanted to get off the fence and dive in as one of my supervisors had bees and we started talking. After a year of reading I got a cutout and have been going since then. I don't see me stopping. They're just too darn fasinating!

[WJensen]

I first started beekeeping with a kit from Sears, and a package from the same company. You could buy all sorts of farm stuff from them then, including chickens and ducks. Anyway, shortly after that, I transferred to California, where I could not keep bees in the small city lots we lived in. We moved around various locations until I retired a couple of years ago. One thing on my list for a new home was a couple of acres where I could keep bees without the neighbors becoming upset.

Well, I now have the two acres, the older equipment is repaired, and I have just installed a package of bees.

Beekeeping has changed dramatically in 25 years. When I started that first package, there were no tracheal mites, no varroa mites, no Nosema Cerenae. The idea of breeding mite resistant bugs was not in the air, and I did not know there was another race of honeybees other than my italians. Naturally, I kept up on the goings on through reading the Bee-L and Gleanings in Bee Culture, dreaming of the day when I would again be able to keep bees again. It was there I learned about feeding, SBB, HFCS, pollen substitutes, and all manner of different management techiques that were never mentioned in "First Lessons in Beekeeping."

Beesource has been a big help as well, this time around.

Regards,

Wade

[poor man]

well im not sure how it started :)

i had been thinking about a new hobbie ans thought why not bees well i built boxes and parts for over a year, reading here and trying to learn (in spare time) then it hit, i was out of town getting supplies and i was told that this guy had a old hive with bees and if he didnt sell it by that night that he was going to kill them off well i couldnt see that happining so i took a quick look(no gear at all) and bought them and waited a couple hours till dark and brought the girls/killers home only to find that they could have been ahb as these things would chase you all over the yard for no reason :( well with small children close by i didnt have time to requeen and wait for them to calm down, so i put them down :( but i already started the ball rolling and i went out and bought my first nuc a few days latter.. and we sit and look at each other ever since :)