Beekeeping
It's all the buzz!
Beekeeping (or apiculture) is a long standing human tradition of maintaining bee colonies, usually for the production of honey, but also beeswax, propolis, pollen, and royal jelly. In the age of agriculture, beekeeping is also a secondary industry used in the polination of crops.
Humans and Bees
Humans have been keeping bees, primarily for honey, for about 10,000 years around the world. Honey was an important product, both for food but also as medicine and has been documented for being used to treat wounds and diseases in ancient times, and it's effective antimicrobial and beneficial properties have been corroborated by modern scientific studies. Honey has been used in food preservation and in the creation of other food products, like mead. In addition to honey, the byproducts of beekeeping are also essential products to humans. Beeswax is extremely useful for many purposes, and pollen can be an important foodsource as well. Given that bees make many things that are beneficial to humans, humans have been honing their skill in maintaining, propogating, and enjoying the collaboration with bees for our benefit for a long time. Long ago, humans would hunt for hives and collect from them, eventually coming to understand bees well enought to build hives maintain colonies in their villages and cities.
Modern Beekeeping
Today in the US, the majority of beekeeping is for industrial agrigulural polinating purposes, with honey and wax being byproducts of those services. However, hobby or backyard beekeeping is on the rise in response to concerns that honey bees were in decline due to colony collapse disorder (CCD) in the early 2000s. Much studying has been done and while there are still a lot of unknowns about CCD, managing for pesticide use impact and parasitic infestations, like varroa mites, have been having a positive impact. Data and analysis is still being done to monitor CCD and take necessary action to protect such an important collaborator in the human food systems of the modern era. Additionally, concerns regarding polinator population decline, has also resulted in an increase interest in maintaining bee habits and colonies for non-honey producing bees, like wood cutter, leaf cutter, and bumble bees.
Additional Resources
Backyard Beekeeping
Keeping bees can be a fun activity and a way to be more self-sufficient in terms of taking an active role in the production of your food and materials or providing a helping hand to the ecosystem. There have been growing concerns about the modification of commercial honey by cutting it with sugar syrup, which reduces its beneficial qualities and can cause concerns with shelf life. Additionally, if you wish to use wax, it can be a fun way to acquire your own materials as a byproduct.
It can be daunting to get started, but is an extremely rewarding and educational experience. If you're interested in starting your beekeeping journey either to help native bee populations or for honeybees, click the button below to request more information!
This page was built by Chelsea Todd