I started working with honeybees at 14 years of age. I helped a friend inspect his many hives and even tried some extracting of honey. I was amazed by it and now 30 years later I still am amazed by the fascinating world of the honeybee. But this hobby is not for everyone. Hopefully you will know if beekeeping is for you by time you finish this Novice Beekeeping Course.

Work is a big part of beekeeping. Hive boxes ( called Supers ) and nearly all hive related parts come in kit form and require assembly. Hours and hours can be spent wiring foundation frames, nailing and gluing boxes, all before you even think of getting bees. I'll be adding box and frame assembly photos and techniques soon to this site. But be assured it can be a lull in your hobby unless you enjoy building and assembly lining projects. I suggest that anyone interesting in Beekeeping should expect to spend up to $500 to get fully setup and running. Equipment is not cheap and bees need to be insured for shipping. Lots of up front costs and modest reoccurring costs for medication and repairs. Your time though is the main source of reoccurring costs. Expect there to be unforeseen circumstances that will require hours and hours of labor on your part. Wintering alone can be costly and time consuming to the hobby beekeeper.

The good thing about Beekeeping today is that it has many NON-BEEKEEPING spin-off hobbies that meld well. I can't get enough of digitally photographing the bees, and I really enjoy writing. With easy point and click software today, anyone can build nice websites with no training in HTML or any other computer language. Again, initial costs can set you back. But there is nothing like having quality equipment that lasts and lasts. 

Read my How Big Should Your Bee Yard Be? section to determine if you can support bees on your property safely and where to best place them. But you need to be as mentally prepared as you are physically ready. Bees can be very self supportive and you can get lazy about tending to their needs. Letting them just do Bee Things and hoping they survive without human intervention is NOT a way to tend your hives. You need to be interactive with your bees and you need to properly log all inspections and observations.

You do have obligations to neighbors, but most of the neighbor related problems can be stifled by simply educating them on honeybee behavior. I have had several neighbors and all of them have actually ben interest in the bees instead of fearing them. That is a goal I would challenge you achieve. Nothing can be more frustrating than having neighbors that complain all the time.

But that goes for family too! Some people have intense fear of bees and other insects. I could not justify having the bees if they brought a family member discomfort. Luckily my family too are beekeeping savvy. I hope you are starting to see that many issues must be weighed before starting a bee yard. I would only want you t attempt the hobby if you have plans to be active in it. Otherwise, the bees and your neighbors both wont like you very much.

Now enough about your family and neighbors. Is beekeeping for you? It will take time, money and expected loss seasonally. Time can be very consuming when it comes to assembly of boxes and frames. I urge you to assembly line every single job. Get away from doing one, the doing another and then doing a third - complete all three at the same time - just like Henry Ford in auto production.

You really have four basic interests as a hobbyist beekeeper. 

• 1) you want to pollinate your home or garden or natural acreage.
• 2) you want to observe bee behavior and even raise queens.
• 3) you want honey for your own or for family, maybe some to sell.
• 4) you want all the above or some other reason similar.

Medication and treatments are essential to the bees survival. You need to treat them timely and as often as recommended and you must inspect them frequently, especially if you see odd bee behavior. You need to watch them, not just toss a hive out in the yard where it's out of the way. You need to have interest in the hives growth and production. The only way to do this is to visually watch them often, inspect the at least bi-weekly and always log all your interaction - most importantly, swarming, treatment, feeding, any thing out of the ordinary.

You will be active in your hives survival or you will have a dead colony. Simply put, bees really need us and you need to interact closely with the colonies as each season changes. Nothing is more satisfying as seeing your bees fly in the Spring after a rough Winter. You can achieve that if you are active in this hobby. If not, your success is that of raising a goldfish in a glass of water. 

Don't forget too that Swarming is a major concern to your neighbors. I always like to show this photo to new-comers who think that Beekeeping is a "Hands-off" hobby. It is not. This picnic table is my neighbors, the green house in the background mine. They came knocking on my door about 8am after almost sitting down to an outdoor breakfast. Needless to say they ate indoors that morning. Mind you, these neighbors were well informed about my bees and they enjoyed watching me work the hives from time to time. If  I hadn't spent time educating them it may have been a disaster. Swarms can be plentiful when a healthy queen, agreeable weather and food is plentiful. One year I had 7 swarms in a matter of weeks, they landed everywhere. It can be a humbling experience to see a quarter million bees bubbling out of the hive and into the air. 

So as COOL as this looks, it can be your neighbors worse nightmare. Bees will land on anything that seems capable of supporting their weight and they could be there for days until the scout bees find a favorable home. You need to know that swift response is expected if you hope for friendly neighbors. Just something you need to think about. Not to forget that NO MATTER what swarm lands in their property, you are expected to take it away to a new and happy home. I watch my colonies closely and I know when they are ready to swarm. Many times I've had to capture some stray swarms before and then magically pull a empty super out of my hat. It is time consuming building frames and installing foundation. But today you can order PREBUILT hive boxes  complete with 10 assembled frames with wax coated plastic foundation already installed. I can think of a billion things I would rather do then build frames and boxes, but I still feel that I do a better job at assembly then Dadants preassembed hive boxes, but they do a satisfactory job and PREBUILT hive boxes or the complete hive kit which includes telescoping top, inner cover, bottom board and entrance reducer. This complete kit is about $78 and well worth it. All you need ( as far as a hive goes ) is there. You only need tools and of course bees.

It is very satisfying to extract honey from well built frames. I do enjoy making my frames, although it is time consuming. I was kinda surprised to see that the Duragild ( plastic foundation with bees wax press honeycomb pattern. A well built frame will last many times if carefully extracted. Make all your hives strong with good wood glue and brads. Square-up all boxes and frames and you will inspect and extract easily for years.

I hope I've helped. Beekeeping is not for everyone. You need to know your allergic level and have proper antidote on hand at all times if you are acutely allergic. I have been stung thousands of times, 200 times once in 30 seconds - that one hurt. I could have used an anaphylactic kit, I could feel my chest tightening and I expected the symptoms - so I was not panicking when the effects of the venom hit me.

You need to know, one way or an other honeybees are going to sting you - no matter how well you dress, they always find their way inside your suit or mask. You can drop stuff and make an awful mess of dropped wax, dead bees drowned in honey and a million bees can be upset and flying all around you, enough to freak out the most hardened beekeeping. 

Bees let you know they are not happy and willing to defend their home at all cost. They'll smack into you, sting you, buzz you insatiably and do everything possible to annoy you and freak you out.

If you are the average person who has genuine interest in the hobby, then I suspect you will continue beekeeping in some fashion for the rest of your life. Even people who have failed again and again have the desire to improve their skills and increase their knowledge of the honeybee. So even if you only enter beekeeping as an internet student, chances are that you will return to the many thousands of beekeeping sites on the Internet to further educate yourself.

The only question here then is: Is Beekeeping for you? I suggest that you find others who are already active in the hobby and speak to the about their concerns and hopefully they will let you assist in hive inspection or honey gathering as my friend Mike did for me. And If you are bitten by the hobby as many of us are, then you will have something to look forward to for the rest of your life.

Lastly, Beekeeping takes many forms. Look at me for example: I work on my website more than 20 hours a week, often shooting hundreds of photos a week. This is beekeeping to me because I enjoy the educating people part of beekeeping. I love honeybees and have a passion to share their wonder with others. Because of the web, I receive hundreds of letters from around the world from people just like you. I could be a beekeeper without ever having a hive. Beekeeping is inside you, not outside in your yard. Think it through, talk with your family and read all that you can. Let me know if this has helped you in your decision.

Beekeeping is a grand hobby that millions of people world wide enjoy. It's fun to watch then and for many of us it's even more fun to write about. Look at my site, hundreds of hours worth of work compiling writings, images, links and it is my love for beekeeping that keeps me going. Bees sting, but Beekeeping bites you and even if you are only a web surfing hobbyist, make the most of this hobby and learn everything you can about our special little friends.