Why keep bees? Health from healthy hives
If not for honey, why raise honey bees? Learn more reasons than you think.
When I speak about natural beekeeping at beekeeping clubs and conferences, I ask the audience why they keep bees. This often sparks a wave of head tilts and smiles as folks stop and consider the existential wonder of their apicultural lifestyle.
Knowing your why helps you make decisions about hive management. If your goal is wax production, maybe you’ll foster and split the highest wax-producing colony and re-home your other colonies. If you’re keeping bees for pollination of a modest backyard garden, why keep more than two hives? (I have friends who remain very strict with their own two-hive-max personal policy. All swarms and splits get re-homed.)
As a hobby, knowing your why helps justify expenses. Beekeeping is an expensive hobby. If you don’t have a strong reason to manage hives, why go to the expense? During my first few seasons with bees, there were many months that I spent more on hive equipment than on our mortgage.
My focus is shifting from hive health to ‘health from healthy hives.’
Reasons for keeping bees can change. Personally, my top goal has always been hive health. I don’t sacrifice the colonies’ well-being for honey harvests or any other products (or services) from the hive. Recently that goal evolved. I’m still managing the hives with their health as the priority, but now I’m exploring ways of maximizing products from the hive for our own health. I already harvest honey when there’s an excess from strong colonies. I’ve harvested propolis and plan to do that again. The more I learn about other resources from the bees (royal jelly, pollen, etc.), the more I realize I’m missing out on abundant wellness resources in my own backyard. My focus is shifting from hive health to health from healthy hives.
If you keep bees, what’s your primary goal? If you want to keep bees, what’s motivating you? Here are reasons to be a beekeeper in no particular order:
Honey. With a poorly regulated commercial inventory of “honey” products in big box and grocery stores, producing your own honey helps ensure purity. Combine your own trusted source with honey’s ancient medicinal properties, no expiration date, and you have a reliable home-grown sweetener that acts as health support. (Don’t let the urban legend of honey’s seasonal allergy aid fool you.)
Wax. The global candle industry is only growing. Unfortunately, many consumers aren’t aware of toxins, synthetic fragrances, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in many candles. Paraffin, for instance, can emit toluene and benzene when burned. The other unfortunate thing is that the types of wax used in candlemaking can have harmful environmental impacts. For instance, soy wax is produced from tremendous monoculture crops of soy, commonly sprayed with glyphosate. A study published last year by BioMed Central showed a common side effect from scented candles is headache. What are the cumulative effects of VOC and toxin exposure through inhalation over a lifetime? That’s something we’ll learn with our generation. Fortunately, beeswax candles have long been revered for personal use and holy ceremonies. Beeswax candles actually improve air quality. When burning, they release negative ions that help remove mold and dust. Aside from candle use, beeswax’s topical benefits help support skin care. Beeswax helps soften skin, creates a barrier, and helps hold moisture. It also serves as a stable binder and a carrier for herbs, oils, and other supportive skin care ingredients.
Pollination. Backyard gardens, market gardens, and larger commercial productions benefit from pollinator support. Although tomatoes are self-pollinating, studies show that tomato plants produce larger fruits when they’re supported by pollinators. (I won’t go on a tangent here about commercial pollination efforts that transport thousands of hives—in wretched conditions—across the country each year. It’s a difficult topic that I feel strongly about.)
One of my tomatoes. Connection with nature. Keeping bees implicitly requires the keeper to be more in tune with the seasons, weather, and nature’s cycles. Before having hives, I’d recognize the typical signs of spring, but I couldn’t tell you that the maple blossoms opened. I wasn’t aware when weather would change to consistent nights below freezing. I also would never have noticed that bees gather pollen from grass. We follow very minimal mowing, so grasses in our yard grow tall and go to seed. During that growth, the grass blades dip and bob with hundreds of bees filling their pollen baskets. I’m so aware of weather and seasonal shifts now that it’s become my lifestyle and is part of my day-to-day.
Community. Connecting with other beekeepers helps offer a commiseration outlet with hive challenges, creates a space to share successes, and preserves certain practices through mentorship. I recently learned that North Carolina, where I live, has the highest concentration of backyard beekeepers in the world. A fellow beekeeper shared the stat with me, which I believe he said was gathered through a recent study run by our state’s Department of Agriculture. I hope to track down the actual data to learn more.
Lifelong learning. You’re never done with bees! Whether there’s a specialty one plans to master (queen rearing, integrated pest management, etc.) or just learning seasonal approaches to keeping bees, there’s always more to learn even beyond what you expect.
Honoring a legacy. Some people are fortunate to be in multi-generational beekeeper families. Carrying on hive management can be an effort to honor their family’s heritage. Other folks, like me, are first-generation (or technically, solo-generation since we’re a child-free family) beekeepers. Instead, there’s a connection to the ancient practice of keeping bees. Considering that honey bees have been around for millions of years, we all must be related to a beekeeper if we trace our ancestry back far enough!
Bee pollen. My recent post Vitamin P: Pollen dives into the incredible health applications of pollen. My pollen trap arrived and I’m planning my first pollen harvest very soon.
Propolis. The more I learn about propolis, the more I prioritize it for my own personal wellness. I made a propolis tincture from my first propolis harvest and I use it seasonally as a daily supplement, like a multivitamin. I also take extra doses when I’m around someone sick, or if I feel like I may be getting a cold. Aside from its many health benefits (I see it as the Swiss Army Knife of the hive), the flavor of the propolis tincture is like breathing flowers. It’s incredibly floral and rejuvenating just in the experience of consuming it.
Propolis and echinacea tinctures that I made.
According to research published last year in MOLECULES, “a wide range of researchers across the world demonstrated [royal jelly’s] beneficial effects for human health, including its antitumor, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, or antimicrobial activities.”
Royal jelly. Every bee in a colony consumes royal jelly during the first three days of its life. The queen, however, eats royal jelly every day of her life. The constituents of royal jelly foster queen development. A queen is a worker bee that has been able to fully develop into a queen. I haven’t had royal jelly yet and I’m still learning harvest methods. From many volumes of research conducted on royal jelly, its reputation as a top health support aid has spanned centuries. It contains hormones, fatty acids, enzymes, and B vitamins. According to research published last year in Molecules, “a wide range of researchers across the world demonstrated [royal jelly’s] beneficial effects for human health, including its antitumor, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, or antimicrobial activities.” The study confirmed important effects from royal jelly that “could revolutionize alternative medicine.” The work takes a deep dive into the many compounds present in royal jelly and its therapeutic uses.
Mead. Not a direct product from the hive, but mead is derived from honey. A honey wine known as “the drink of the gods” by ancient Greeks, mead is a delicious byproduct that extends the use of honey harvests.
Bee venom therapy. It’s exactly what you think—intentionally getting stung for therapeutic purposes. The research stems on biological responses to stings—the primary initial reaction is increased blood flow to the sting site. Bee venom therapy is also being researched for multiple sclerosis treatments, and has been used for arthritic support for thousands of years.
Apitherapy. As a broad term, apitherapy is utilizing products from the hive for therapeutic needs, many of which I’ve touched on in earlier bullet points. There are also therapy approaches that allow people to breath in the hive air while awake and while asleep. My new Layens hive actually has an add-on accessory—a bed! I don’t plan on getting that accessory for it, but I really admire the hive houses employed throughout Slovenia. These small structures, which I’ll call hive cabins, allow you to walk in and be close to the bees. The interior of the cabins are built so that the bees don’t come in, and at least one wall is entirely bee hives. Inside, screen systems allow the aromas of the hive to fill the cabin. I recently watched a short incredible documentary that profiles several Slovenian beekeepers, one of which is an apitherapist who brings patients into her hive cabin.
Fun. Keeping bees is a rewarding experience. Although it’s a lot of work—it’s a lot of fun too.
Am I missing any reasons? Why do you keep or want to keep bees?