How to start beekeeping for free

Beekeeping has suddenly become popular after being in decline for more than half a century.

Honey bees have been in the news for all the wrong reasons: colony collapses, pesticide poisoning, and parasitic mites, and all of this bad news seems to have triggered an almost primal desire in people to want to help and nurture this vitally important insect. that, despite all our scientific advances, we still do not fully understand them, but we know that we cannot live without them.

For as long as I can remember, beekeepers have been portrayed by the media as harmless (mostly) old men, doing mysterious things with strange wooden boxes filled with bees, while wearing sartorially suspicious attire. However, this image is beginning to change, with more and more women and young people attracted by the idea of ​​learning this ancient trade and a new urgency in the air about the preservation of our bees for their important role as pollinators, as well as for their own good.

When people first consider keeping bees, their first port of call will most likely be their local Beekeepers Association. Here you will almost always find a friendly welcome and a lot of technical talk between the ‘old guys’, most of which will sound like a foreign language at first. When the jargon is translated, it turns out that one will have to part with a not inconsiderable sum of money to buy one’s ticket to this arcane world: shiny catalogs full of shiny gear are seductive, but the accompanying price lists can come as a bit of a drag. good shock.

Many are put off by the idea at this point.

But it does not have to be like that. It is perfectly possible to become a beekeeper, even a good beekeeper, without wasting a good chunk of your hard-earned savings. In fact, as I’ll show you, you can even do it virtually for free!

The next hurdle facing the aspiring beekeeper is the heavy weights one is expected to lift and carry. With conventional equipment, he should be able to deadlift at least 50 pounds from ground level; It’s not something he should attempt if he has a slight build and isn’t used to changing cases in that class.

Again, this doesn’t have to be the case – I’ll show you how the least fit person can become a beekeeper. In fact, using my system, you could even work a hive from a wheelchair.

Another hurdle that can dampen the enthusiasm of newcomers is storage space. Using conventional hives, you can’t help but accumulate all sorts of ‘extras’ – oddly shaped boxes, frames, roofs, extractors – all sorts of stuff the ‘old guys’ forgot to mention at that first exciting meeting – and you’ll need space to store it. . We’re talking garage space, folks. Once again, I have good news: follow my system and you won’t need any additional storage space, since everything can be stored within the hives themselves.

So what does it really take to become a beekeeper?

The essentials are quite simple: a kind of beehive, a hat and a veil, an old white shirt and, at least for a start, some gloves, and the agreement of the people who share your living space. It doesn’t matter if you’re a city dweller or a country dweller, as long as there’s a plentiful and varied supply of flowering plants from early spring onwards. In fact, bees do better in well-kept urban areas than in the “green desert” of modern industrial farmland.

Like many beekeeping novices, I started with a conventional framed hive, the kind with sloping outer boxes that are familiar from children’s books. Soon, I acquired a couple more and began to realize that if I wanted to continue down this path, I would have to build myself a big shed in which to store all the spare woodwork and other rapidly accumulating paraphernalia, and I would have to find a way to pay for all the ‘extras’ that you would soon need.

At this point I asked myself: does it really have to be this way? – and that innocent question led me on an exploratory mission of reading, studying, and experimenting that showed me conclusively that no, it doesn’t have to be this way: beekeeping doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or reliant on machine-made parts. . And equipment.

My search for an alternative approach led me to the top bar hive, one of the oldest and simplest hive types, requiring little skill and few tools to build. A good start on the path to sustainable simplicity, but is it a practical hive for modern beekeeping?

After a few years of experimenting and trying various designs, I believe I now have a top bar hive design that is easy to build, practical and productive, while being comfortable and easy to use for both the bees and the beekeeper. .

So what are top bar hives?

The principle is simple: a box with sticks on top, to which the bees attach their honeycomb. Mine have central side entrances, sloped sides, and a couple of “track boards” to enclose the colony. There are many variations on this theme and all have the essential guiding principle of simplicity of construction and management. There are no frames, queen excluders, ekes, mouse guards, supers, foundations and no need for exhaust fans, settling tanks, filters, coring blades…in fact, no need for any other equipment or storage space, different from the one provided within the hive itself. And if you’ve just spent an hour flipping through supplier catalogs, wondering how you can afford to keep bees, that’ll be a relief!

Building a top bar hive is no more difficult than putting up shelves and can be done with hand tools and reclaimed wood. Top-notch beekeeping really is ‘beekeeping for everyone’, including people with disabilities, back problems or a reluctance to lift boxes – no heavy lifting once the hives are in place, as the honey one honeycomb is harvested at a time. From the bees’ point of view, top bar hives offer weather-resistant shelter, the opportunity to build a comb to your own design, without the limitations of a man-made wax foundation, and minimal disturbance. , thanks to a “leave it alone” management style. .

So where do you get the bees?

You can buy or catch them, or if you’re lucky, they’ll adopt you! Catching or luring a swarm is by far the most fun, and a lot easier than you think. Bees form swarms in response to their reproductive instinct, mainly in spring and early summer, and the sight of a swarm in flight is certainly impressive. However, contrary to popular belief, this is the time when you are least likely to be stung: your only concern at that time is finding a new place to live. So if you offer them the right kind of housing at the right time, like a cozy, pleasant-smelling beehive, they’re more than likely to move in on their own. Many people become beekeepers by luring a passing swarm using a few drops of citronella or lemongrass oil, or better yet, by rubbing the inside of the hive with pure beeswax.

Capturing a swarm isn’t difficult either: hold a basket or cardboard box below your football-sized group on a tree branch and give it a good shake. It’s not always as easy as that, but it’s rarely as hard as getting a cat out of a tree.

If you think you want to keep bees, I suggest you first meet a local beekeeper who is willing to let you visit and handle his bees. Most beekeeper associations hold “meet the bees” days during the spring, giving newcomers a chance to look inside a hive and test their responses to being surrounded by bees.

And bites? Yes, you do get stung from time to time, no matter how careful you are. Local swelling, redness and itching are normal reactions: fainting, breathing difficulties and collapse are true allergic symptoms and can be life-threatening. Most people who keep bees become less sensitive to stings over time, but sometimes the opposite is true, and sometimes an experienced beekeeper can suddenly become allergic. So if you have any reason to suppose that you may be sensitive to bee venom (only one in 200 people are), make sure you have Benadryl or an Epipen (adrenaline shot) with you or make sure whoever is with you be properly equipped to deal with an emergency.

Whether you approach it from the standpoint of conservation, entomology, crop pollination, or simply a love of honey, beekeeping is an engaging pursuit and a fascinating window into the natural world.

Bees are in trouble right now, due to pesticides, industrial farming, pollution, parasitic mites and viruses, and we need all the ‘natural’ beekeepers we can get to increase their numbers and give them a chance to solve their own problems. So if you want to keep bees, build a hive before swarming season, and you could be tasting your own honey by the end of summer!