Beekeeping

Beekeeping, also called apiculture, is the practice of caring for bee colonies in special boxes called beehives. People who keep bees, known as beekeepers, do this to get useful products like honey, beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. Bees also help by pollinating crops, and beekeepers can earn money by selling queens and groups of bees to other keepers.

The oldest pictures showing humans collecting honey are from caves in Spain and are about 6,000 years old. Around 3,100 years ago in Egypt, people began keeping bees.

Today, many beekeepers move their hives to fields to help plants grow. Some big farms have many hives, but many people keep bees just for fun. With new tools and methods, keeping bees has become easier, and more people, even in cities, are starting to keep their own hives. Some research shows that city bees might stay healthier because cities often have less harmful chemicals and more variety of plants than rural areas.

History

Further information: Western honey bee § Domestication

People have kept bees for at least 10,000 years. They made homes for bees called hives from things like hollow logs, wooden boxes, and woven baskets. Ancient people liked bee honey and wax. In places like Egypt and Georgia, people kept bees in pottery containers and used honey in special ceremonies.

Over time, people learned more about bees. In the 18th century, scientists built glass hives to watch bees without bothering them. This helped us learn how bees live and work together. Today, beekeepers use special hives with movable frames to collect honey without hurting the bees. These hives were made in the 19th century by a man named Lorenzo Langstroth. He found that bees leave small spaces between their combs.

In ancient Greece and Rome, people valued bees, and writers like Aristotle wrote about them. In China, bees were kept for honey too, and in the Maya civilization, a special type of bee without stings was used to make a sweet drink.

Before movable frames, getting honey often meant destroying the hive. Bees were smoked to calm them, and the combs were taken out and crushed to get the honey. This was hard on the bees. But new designs changed that.

In the 19th century, many people helped improve beekeeping. They made better hives, tools, and ways to care for bees. One important invention was a machine that spins the combs to easily collect honey. These advances let people make more honey and care better for bees.

In 2015, a new type of hive was invented in Australia. It lets people get honey without using special spinning machines.

Many people helped make beekeeping better. They wrote books, made new tools, and shared their knowledge. Their work helped both bees and people.

Hives and other equipment

Horizontal hives

A Horizontal top-bar hive is a simple beehive where the comb hangs from bars, forming a continuous roof. Unlike most hives, it doesn’t have frames that allow bees to move between boxes. These hives are rectangular and wider than the multi-story framed hives common in English-speaking countries. They usually have one box, making inspections easier as only one comb needs to be lifted at a time.

Vertical stackable hives

There are three types of vertical stackable hives: hanging or top-access frame, sliding or side-access frame, and top bar. Hanging-frame hives include designs like Langstroth, British National, Dadant, Layens, and Rose. Langstroth hives are the most common in the United States and much of the world, while British National hives are common in the United Kingdom. Dadant and Modified Dadant hives are widely used in France and Italy, and Layens hives are used where their large size is an advantage. Any hanging-frame hive can be built as a sliding frame design. Top-bar stackable hives use top bars instead of full frames, with the Warre hive being the most common type.

Protective clothing

Most beekeepers wear some protective clothing. New beekeepers usually wear gloves, a hooded suit, and a veil. Experienced beekeepers might skip gloves to allow for more delicate work. The face and neck are the most important areas to protect, so most beekeepers wear at least a veil.

Smoker

Main article: Bee smoker

Most beekeepers use a smoker, a device that makes smoke from burning fuels. Smoke is believed to calm bees. Common fuels include hessian, twine, pine needles, and wood. Some beekeepers use "liquid smoke," a water-based solution sprayed onto bees, or even clean water to encourage bees to move.

Hive tool

Main article: Hive tool

Most beekeepers use a hive tool when working on their hives. The two main types are the American hive tool and the Australian hive tool, also called a 'frame lifter'. These tools are used to scrape off extra wax from around the hive and to separate frames before lifting them out.

Safety and husbandry

Stings

Main article: Bee sting

Beekeepers sometimes think getting stung a few times each season helps lessen pain from future stings. When a bee stings, venom enters the body, but wearing protective clothing can help. Symptoms of a sting include redness, swelling, and itching. In most cases, these symptoms go away quickly. If a beekeeper is stung, it’s best to remove the sting without squeezing it. Washing the area with soap and water and applying ice can also help.

Internal temperature of a hive

Bees work hard to keep their hive at just the right temperature, about 35 °C (95 °F). In hot weather, they cool the hive by moving air through it and sometimes using water. In cold weather, extra insulation around the hive helps bees save energy and keeps the hive warmer.

Location of hives

There is debate about the best place to set up beehives. Most agree that hives should be protected from strong winds. In hot areas, hives are often placed in the shade of trees during summer. Placing hives in certain areas can affect the bees’ access to food and their interaction with other bees.

Natural beekeeping

Some beekeepers follow “natural beekeeping” methods. These methods avoid many modern practices like moving hives often or using medicines. These methods often use simple hive designs that let bees build combs more naturally. Books like Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad and The Barefoot Beekeeper by Philip Chandler have helped popularize these approaches.

Urban and backyard beekeeping

Main article: Urban beekeeping

Urban beekeeping uses small bee colonies in cities to help pollinate gardens. Some people find city bees stay healthier because there are fewer harmful chemicals. However, city bees might need extra food, so planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen can help. Using managed bee colonies in cities can also help prevent more aggressive bee species from becoming common.

Indoor beekeeping

Beekeepers have tried keeping bees indoors in controlled spaces. This can be useful when space is limited or during winter when bees are normally dormant. In 2015, researchers at MIT tested keeping bees indoors year-round with special lighting and food, and the bees stayed healthy and active.

Behavior of honey bees

Colony reproduction

Main article: Swarming (honey bee)

A honey bee colony needs its queen, who is the only bee that can lay eggs. She decides if each egg becomes a female worker bee or a male drone, based on the size of the cell where she lays it. When the queen gets older and runs out of sperm, she stops making special smells, or pheromones, that hold the hive together.

Without these pheromones, the worker bees will raise a new queen from one of their own eggs. They change a worker cell into a queen cell, and the new queen will either replace the old one or lead part of the hive to a new home. This is called swarming.

Factors that trigger swarming

Bees might swarm for several reasons, such as:

• Their natural instincts
• The hive being too crowded
• Not enough space for honey and nectar
• Poor airflow in the hive
• An older queen
• Warmer weather

Beekeepers look for signs of swarming, like queen cells, in the spring. If a swarm leaves, a beekeeper might catch it and place it in a new hive. Otherwise, the swarm might go to a tree or another spot to build a new home.

Artificial swarming

If a hive loses its queen by accident, the worker bees will create new queen cells from young eggs. They feed these special larvae a lot of royal jelly, which helps them develop into queens.

Beekeepers sometimes use this to create new hives by moving some brood combs with young eggs and nurse bees into a small new hive box, called a nucleus hive. The workers will then make new queens and help grow the new colony.

Pests and diseases

Diseases

Main article: List of diseases of the honey bee

Honey bees can get sick from many things like fungi, bacteria, tiny organisms called protozoa, viruses, parasites, and even poisons. When bees get sick, they often show similar signs, making it hard to know what’s wrong without special tests. Since 2006, many bee colonies around the world have been dying for reasons that are still not fully understood.

Parasites

One common problem for bees is a tiny organism called Nosema apis, which causes a disease known as nosema. Wax moths, like Galleria mellonella and Achroia grisella, can destroy bee nests by tunneling through the honeycombs and eating the honey and bee larvae. Another pest, the small hive beetle (Aethina tumida), is from Africa but has spread to many places and can be harmful to bees that aren’t used to it. The Varroa destructor mite is a big problem for bees worldwide and is thought to be one reason why many bee colonies have been dying. There are also other mites, like Tropilaelaps, that can harm bees. The Acarapis woodi mite lives in the breathing tubes of bees and makes them sick.

Predators

Even though honeybees have stings that protect them, some animals still try to take their honey and larvae. Big animals like skunks and bears often look for bee hives. Some birds, like bee-eaters, and certain flies also eat bees.

Decreasing lifespan

A study from 2022 found that worker bees now live half as long as they did 50 years ago. This shorter lifespan may mean that bees produce less honey.

Recent developments

In 2023, a report showed that honey from many European countries was not pure. Around the same time, the US found that some imported honey was not pure either.

An international beekeeping group changed its rules in 2024 to make honey testing easier. They asked for better ways to track honey and better lab tests to check quality. These changes show how hard it is for beekeepers to keep their products safe and trusted.

World apiculture

The number of beehives in the world has grown a lot. In 1961, there were about 50 million beehives. By 2014, that number had grown to about 83 million. This means the number of beehives has been increasing each year.

Gallery: Harvesting honey

Beekeepers work with hives to collect honey safely. They use smoke to calm the bees before taking out frames full of honey. They remove the wax caps from the honey cells and filter the honey to make it ready for use. People can keep bees at home, and wooden hives are a popular way to do this.