Getting Started With Bees
Beekeeping is for everyone!
No matter your age, background, location, or anything else, beekeeping is something you can pursue! On this page we try to answer the most common questions we get from all the folks we’ve talked with at workshops, markets, school visits and more. Everything that we say is based on our experience or information we’ve soaked up, but there are many different methods and approaches, this is one of the wonderful things about beekeeping. Take everything with a grain of salt (second opinions are a must), watch plenty of videos and read books, and above all don’t be intimidated! There are literally thousands of years of beekeeping knowledge, and this can seem overwhelming. But ultimately, listen to the bees: if they’re happy and healthy, that’s all you need. Always keep learning, and do what’s right for you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time.
What do I need to get started?
One of the beautiful things about beekeeping is the simplicity and room for modifications. The Langstroth hive (the most widely used style) was developed in the 1800s and is economical, modular, and has the most information available. There are many different hive styles, it’s worth doing your own research and picking what you like. Bees like living in horizontal hives with thicker walls than the vertical Langstroth, but these are also more expensive, harder to move, and produce less honey. Law requires removable frames for inspection purposes, so unfortunately hive types like skeps are not legal, proceed at your own risk. There are keepers who build clay or stone hives, different wooden hives (the Sun Hive is very cool), wicker, hollow logs, and more. But the Langstroth is very approachable and allows you to learn well, and is cost-effective, and bees can be kept happy and healthy in them. We try to give as few absolute statements as possible, but one is do not get a Flow Hive! Flow Hives are absolute garbage, all marketing and cool videos, they “solve” a “problem” that doesn’t exist. The bees do not like them and they are far more expensive than any other option, and because they’re expensive the market has become flooded with cheap knock-offs that are even worse.
So all you need are boxes, bees, a suit, a smoker, and a hive tool. Consider a feeding system (there are many), and use whatever tools or gadgets appeal to you and help the bees. Most expensive items are unnecessary: experiment and see what you like. Woodworking types can build their own hive components, as an example all our hives use our own roof design, and we make candy boxes, quilt boxes, landing boards and more. All equipment can be purchased from Dadant or Mann Lake, two fantastic companies with huge catalogues.
How many hives?
This is one area where we have strong opinions, and many experts agree: start with three hives! This is a little more expense, but if you’re going to do something (especially with animals), you should do it right. Queen genetics determine everything in the colony, and they vary widely. If you start with one hive you may have a bad or mediocre queen and not even know it; more hives allow you to compare, to move resources from a strong hive to a weak one, and to learn much faster. Additionally, some death throughout the year is unavoidable. The best beekeepers have a survival rate around 80% but the national average is closer to 50%, and one of the most discouraging things about beginning is having the bees that you love die and having to start from scratch the next year. We’ve talked to SO many people who have gone through this for a few years and just give up and sell or donate their equipment. The first year is the most difficult, but with some good prep and research you’ll make it through and the bees will thrive. Three hives don’t take much more time to manage than one, you’ll have colonies surviving to the second year, and it will pay dividends in knowledge and in honey!
Packages or Nucs?
Bees can be obtained in packages (three pounds of bees in a box with an unrelated queen) or nucleus colonies (five frames of workers with food stores, brood, and a related queen already laying eggs). Packages are just a little cheaper and can be shipped in the mail, while nucs must be picked up. Our supplier brings nucs and packages from Texas for pickup in Shawnee, he is a good option for getting bees. We steer people toward nucs as they are over a month ahead of packages (in terms of establishment), and the bees are all related, less stressed and more healthy, and thus will have a much better year.
Where should I place my hives?
We manage 150 hives and growing on all sides of Kansas City, even rooftops. In a perfect world, bees face southeast for morning sun, have five feet of space around the hives, and have full sun or get a little noon shade. But all of our sites are different, and most of them feature hive stands with up to seven hives on them with around six inches between them. If you can, avoid full shade. Windbreaks are useful, especially in winter (these can be trellises, straw bales, shed walls, stands of trees, just about anything). Barriers are also useful to avoid defensiveness: beehives are much safer than most people think, but the bees do defend the space in front of the hive, as well as the periphery. Sight lines and flight paths can be effected through placement of barriers and facing the hives away from areas where people are walking, working, or playing. Check with neighbors first, most people are fine with it and a little honey always sweetens the deal! Many communities and towns have regulations regarding placement and some HOAs prohibit them, always look into this first. But, if people can’t see your hives, they won’t know they’re there.
We keep all of our hives on hive stands we build, basically one foot tall tables built the same way you would a deck. Consider the weight of the hives—many people just use concrete blocks and 4x4s or railroad ties, which looks terrible, weathers poorly, and doesn’t support much weight. Many people keep hives on old pallets, but it is very easy and cheap to build a nice hive stand. In a city, nice presentation shows people that the hives they see are well maintained, and makes everyone feel safer. If you’re going to do something, why not make it look nice?
I don’t have a yard or roof access
Many people want to keep bees but don’t have much space. This is a problem with an easy solution! Most people have friends with backyards who wouldn’t mind a few hives in exchange for some honey, there are many community gardens who would happily host, or even some educational facilities or campuses. You can get creative, reach out on social media, and you’d be surprised how many places are available. Then you get to keep bees, get involved with a community, and maybe even involve others in the beekeeping!
How much time will it take?
You can expect to spend a few hours a week checking your hives, making it a fun weekend activity. A little more time is spent on spring installation, splitting hives (if you want more), honey harvesting, and winter prep.
What should I watch out for?
As with most things in beekeeping, there is an almost infinite amount of information out there, so never stop researching and learning! Look out for pests like small hive beetles, wax moths, and especially varroa. Diseases like foulbrood are very rare but very terrible for an entire area and MUST be eradicated. Be sure that your bees are building population well in the spring and early summer. If you have aggressive or overly defensive bees, replace the queen immediately—bad bees will be less fun for you, and genetics spread over a whole area as bees reproduce, so one bad hive can make many bad hives for years to come. In fall, be sure that there are good food stores for winter and that you don’t check them too much—the bees make their own weather sealant, and opening them in colder weather breaks the seals. In winter the bees give off a lot of perspiration, be sure to include some method of moisture control (this usually doubles as insulation and sometimes food, as with candy boards). There is of course much more, but again don’t be intimidated or discouraged! Do good preparation research, and learn by doing as you start keeping bees.
Is keeping honey bees even a good thing?
Unfortunately there have been a lot of articles written recently raising questions about the ethics and environmental impact of beekeeping. Some of the primary concerns are the growing number of hives around the world, too many hives per city, and native pollinator awareness; it’s a complicated issue and it’s worth reading about, but we have a few opinions. As for the number of hives, it’s true that beekeeping is increasing as a hobby, but something like 85% of the bee colonies in the US are migratory pollinators, i.e. beekeepers who truck bees state-to-state to pollinate crops that wouldn’t survive otherwise as growers have destroyed the immediate ecosystem. These bees are stressed out and treated poorly, and obviously make up a highly concentrated and transient population, so lumping them in with hobbyist beekeepers is misleading and weird. As for number of hives per city, it varies greatly—Raytown and Downtown KC are very different, and Downtown KC and Manhatten are quite different as well! The only way to truly judge this is the health of individual hives place to place, their populations and food stores. For some context, none of our hives have had any issues excepting for the rooftop hives downtown, where foraging is difficult. But even downtown is different building to building. As for the natives, to us this is the most pertinent area of concern: native bees have lower populations and smaller travel ranges, and they must be cared for even more than honey bees. For this reason we place native bee homes at our sites and encourage everyone to keep as many as they can, and to plant native gardens. Native bees and honey bees have some overlap but there are some flowers that only one will visit. We’ve changed our own landscape and urban environment dramatically, and while honey bees are not endemic to the US they have become essential and (we believe) they can coexist well with those insects who have more claim to our region. As usual we’ve gone on way too long, but it’s an important topic, and the media has flattened out, confused, and misrepresented the discourse (as they tend to). Definitely look into it and think about all of our flora and fauna as you go.