Don’t order bees online. I almost could end the post there.
In late winter 2021, I ordered a package of bees online. We were gathering a lot of the equipment we needed for the homestead at once to take advantage of a bonus on our business card and I immediately regretted including bees in that purchase. Our weather is unpredictable. The post office was still recovering from pandemic issues. It just felt like a bad idea, so I tried to cancel my order and was basically told to jump in a creek. Keep in mind that the bees who would be shipped to me probably did not even exist yet. It was frustrating and I fretted about it for a couple of months, and then my bees arrived, without a can of sugar syrup (their food!), soaking wet in a snowstorm. I was devastated and felt so guilty.
For Mother’s Day a couple of weeks later, Julio got me new bees that I could pickup from a bee company a few miles away. It was much better all around.
Then came Bee Day. Installing the bees in the hive that I had painted months before. (Video: Bee Day at Sol Homestead) It was such a special day and I remember it fondly as the beginning of my journey keeping bees. Here are my top tips and reminders from what I have learned in the three years since.
Do take a class. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or fancy. Local bee clubs or shops sometimes offer them. I took one through Perfect Bee, which was inexpensive. I also used this book. I read several beekeeping forums and am shocked sometimes by what people don’t know. Taking care of bees means taking some responsibility for living creatures. I think you are responsible for at least a basic framework of information before you start. You should be able to tell a drone from a worker, spot eggs vs larvae, know the signs of wax moth infestation, etc. A 101 class can give you that info, and it will help with your confidence going in.
You will get obsessed. There is always more to learn about bees and your bees will throw you curve balls that send you back to the books trying to solve a puzzle. Checking a hive takes 30-60 minutes on average, but it will occupy your thoughts for much longer.
Bees will change your perspective. I noticed that once I started learning about bees, it changed how I looked at the environment around me. I noticed forage, water, people using pesticides, and other insects more readily. Suddenly, I saw bees everywhere. It is magical.
Learn to spot a queen but don’t stress it. Julio and I sat around one afternoon and looked through Queenspotting by Hilary Kearney, solving the puzzles like a couple of kids playing I-Spy. Learning to spot the queen is an essential skill, but even if you are good at it, you will not always find the queen in your hive. You don’t always need to. If you get good at spotting eggs and whether they are new or a couple of days old, that is usually enough to tell you if your hive is queenright. The queen who came with my first package of bees was really tiny and light-colored for a queen. I only spotted her once, but it was pretty clear to me when she was there and ultimately when she was not. (She layed a ton of drone eggs and then either died or was offed. It was a mess. Olivarez Bees to the rescue with an October delivery.)
Bees are good at surviving and easy to kill. Bees know how to be bees. They do not read the textbooks. Sometimes they do surprising things. They are good at surviving though. When I don’t know what to do, unless it seems like a real emergency, I often wait a week and come back to find that the bees fixed the issue themselves. On the flip side, bees are easy to kill. Losing a hive is part of keeping bees. Either way, do not be so hard on yourself.
Everyone will say mites are your problem. You have to have some mite-management plan. I treat in spring and fall. I have made mistakes and tainted whole supers of honey with a badly-timed mite treatment, but my bees lived! Take mite management seriously. I find it frustrating, however, that anytime someone asks a question in a forum a dozen people immediately inquire about mites. Be prepared for that. It is an obsession in the community that I think is worth noting alongside the truth that if you ask 50 beekeepers a question, you’ll get 100 answers.
It’s okay to be scared. I was nervous the first few times I worked with my bees. My hands were shaky. Sometimes, if they’re cranky, I still get a little scared. But try to move calmly, even if you don’t feel it. If you go in all freaked out, you will probably drop frames, knock things over, and get your bees more riled up. Ask me how I know. I find that talking to the bees calms me down and when I’m calm, they’re calm. Trust your bee suit. Check the zippers before you open the hive.
Have a plan. Whenever you go into the hive, some bees will die—squished between boxes, stinging you, etc. If you are going to open their house, make sure you have a reason and a plan so you do not waste their time and energy. I like to go over my plan before I pop the lid. Also, take off your jewelry and put your hair up.
Honey won’t make you rich. It’s expensive to keep bees, harvest honey, etc. Most beekeepers will be lucky to turn a profit. If you want to get rich off bees, know it’ll be really hard to do so and you will need to have other products than honey as well.
Do you keep bees? What are your top tips?