All about beekeeping

Are you wondering why you should take up beekeeping as a hobby or as a small business?

There are several reasons to start beekeeping. Depending on what you are after beekeeping can fulfill many of your needs and provide a great source of satisfaction as you look after these wonderful insects.

Honey

This is probably the main reason associated with the dream of keeping bees. For thousands of years humans have harvested honey from wild honey bees and then developing beekeeping. Honey has always had a special place in mythology as it was a rare and sought after commodity. Today honey is a commercially available product yet the satisfaction of harvesting your own honey, produced by your own bees, is the main reason why many beekeepers find their hobby or profession rewarding. And of course the honey produced by your own bees is the best in the world!

 

Help the Environment

Beekeeping can help address the decline witnessed in the wild honey bee population. Due to increased urbanization, loss of habitat and use of pesticides, the number of honey bees in the wild has declined over the years. This has huge effects on agriculture and nature in general because of the role played by bees in the pollination process as most of the pollination done by insects is thanks to the honey bee.

Bees are excellent pollinators: up to 40 per cent of the fruit and vegetables that we eat are pollinated by bees. Without bees and their hard work, many crops struggle and this is reflected in the cost to the end consumer. It is vitally important that humans look after bees as the consequences of a decline in bees numbers can be catastrophic.

 

Improve your Health

Many beekeepers find their activity helps them relax from the stress of daily modern life. The slower pace that needs to be adopted when around bees and the amazingly interesting world of bees transport the beekeeper in a much more relaxed space.

Furthermore, according to the American Apitherapy Society, products of the honeybee such as bee venom, honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, beebread and beeswax help treat or improve several medical conditions like infections, arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), wounds, burns and many more.
 

Time and Commitment

Beekeeping is an activity that does not require a lot of time. When starting out, there will be a couple of days needed to assemble the hives and generally putting all the equipment together. After that, though, the minimum number of times you need to visit your hives is about 5-6 a year. Bees look after themselves for most of the time and are pretty independent. Only in the first year you might need to spend more time in the establishing period of the hive. The only other time that you need to devote to beekeeping is related to harvesting honey and looking after equipment.

 

Beekeeping as a small business

Beekeeping can provide a good source of income as a small business. It will cost a few hundred dollars and a few hours to start out but it requires little maintenance and the honey you harvest can provide an income of a few hundred dollars per year. The more hives you have, the more income you receive. Beekeeping is therefore one of the best small businesses to scale up or down as your circumstances dictate.

In summary, there are many reasons to take up beekeeping as a hobby. Hopefully you will find one that introduces you to the wonderful world of beekeeping.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 am and is filed under Reference. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.