Is beekeeping hard? And if so, why?

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smallbee

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Ok, so now that I have nothing much to actually do to the bees for now, my mind turns to the human factors/cognitive science aspects of beekeeping, as human factors is one of the many things I do badly and I am currently procrastinating from writing a dissertation about expertise (in a very different domain).

I think most people seem to agree that beekeeping is tricky. It's pretty much universally agreed that anyone wanting bees should do a course, probably read some books, either have a mentor or be part of an association where you can get advice. And there are many internet forums and blogs about the many technical aspects of it.

The Apiarist writes a bit about it here: https://theapiarist.org/shallow-learning-curves/
Main points:
* hard to do inspections with all the bees in the way
* a lot of things to be on the lookout for
* lots of seasonal and local variation

I think it is difficult. Points that The Apiarist doesn't touch on include the fact that feedback cycles are long.
Fail to treat your colony for varroa? Might last a couple of years before it succumbs.
Ignore swarming? If queen mating conditions are good, maybe you don't even notice, if you're not observant.
Long feedback cycles make learning hard because it becomes harder to connect cause to effect. And not noticing the signs of whatever the cause was makes it even less likely that learning happens.

Even worse, bee colonies are complex dynamic systems - lots of variables, all changing all the time and affecting each other in ways that can lead to nonlinear effects. Humans are bad about reasoning about this kind of system. The classic 'why did my bees abscond' tipping point where declining bee numbers collide with peak mite numbers and result in rapid collapse is probably the best example of this. One thing I do know about managing dynamic systems is that unless they are inherently stable with robust feedback systems (and bee colonies are not inherently stable if you consider swarming instability, plus there is varroa), then at some point things are likely to spin out of control if you don't have a fairly accurate model of how they are working and what you need to do to manage them.

A lot of people talk about 'reading a hive'. There's a lot of research into expertise in general and how experts in any given domain are different to novices.
One big way that experts are different is that they can make sense of a lot of noisy information and extract what Dietrich Dorner calls 'supersignals'.
Experienced practitioners in all fields quite literally see the world differently to novices. So where a novice looks at a frame and just sees a jumble of stuff and is struggling to pick out what is honey and what is beebread and what is brood, the expert parses all of that effortlessly and sees all sorts of things - some subtle, like cleaned empty cells or pinprick holes in cappings - that contribute to their understanding of the state of the colony, and, importantly, what it's likely to be doing in the next couple of weeks. The expert doesn't have to pore over the frame and think hard about it, they literally just 'see' that the queen is likely to lay on it soon, or that there is a varroa issue brewing.

There's also an idea that experts navigate situations using what are called 'data frames', which are basically stories or maps of a given situation. Those frames guide how we seek out knowledge. So an experienced beekeeper knowing that it is spring will be thinking of swarming and looking for signs that it's time to add more space or do some other manipulation. Or in the autumn you're looking for evidence about varroa levels, effectiveness of treatments, and winter stores. If you know a hive has a very old queen maybe you're also looking for signs of supersedure. Experts have a rich library of frames. Novices don't, so we're just using Hooper's questions and hoping for the best :)

Of course, sometimes our frames are not complete, and the ability to notice anomalies, things that are not as expected in that frame, is also a hallmark of expertise. The beekeeper who notices greasy trembling bees on the top bars, or that a hive isn't building up as expected in the spring, or that their clipped queen has two full pairs of wings now, or that there is comb with jagged edges indicating robbing, is doing that.

And all this is before we even get into the hardest parts of beekeeping, which are, of course, keeping the smoker lit and finding the queen :ROFLMAO:

But in all seriousness, as well as the cognitive science stuff, there is the practical side, and part of that is knowing what 'levers' you can pull in order to achieve various goals, and which kinds of interventions work best in which conditions and times of the year.... there is a lot there too. And I'm still only scraping the surface of it.

The one thing that beekeepers do have in our favour is that - local factors and genetics aside - there is a fair amount of commonality between bee colonies. Colony A and Colony B sitting beside each other in similar states and with similar history have a fair chance of behaving similarly. So we can learn, and apply our knowledge year to year, colony to colony. Hence, beekeeping by the calendar works to an extent. Of course novel diseases and pests do shake things up, as do things like treatments becoming ineffective, changing climates. No free lunch.
 
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As Finman used to say, much in beekeeping seems to me to be due to the "pastures". On average, apparently only two out of every 10 years is a "good year". I've heard that said here by very experienced beekeepers and I've heard it said with beekeeping in the UK too. It also seems to take a long time to garner "sufficient" knowledge with bees because you probably need to have experienced many, many different seasons and all the many variations with different colonies, situations etc. It probably needs about 20 years of experience with a good number of colonies to come to reasonable grips with it.
 
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But in all seriousness -
Keeping a few hives in the garden is extremely simple, running 100's as a commercial operation with Queen breeding, disease/external pressure control and all the biz logistics is hard and takes decades to master (which is why it's interesting).

I've one stock sitting in a wood, two brood and supers - that hive has sat there years untouched just fine (it's an ongoing experiment).
 
A lot of bee keeping difficulty is related to local climate and weather.
It is undoubtedly easier in balmier SE England than 300 meters above sea level on some windswept hill somewhere in Wales, Scotland or Northern England.
And having expert tuition/help at an early start helps greatly.
 
beekeeping is as hard or a simple as the beekeeper want to make it and is more dependent on the goals of keeping bees in the first place.

Its such a broad spectrum that until one looks at that, and the local conditions, I think it's an impossible question to answer

You may as well ask, 'do modern bees in the current environment need humans to survive?"

Tin hat time :ROFLMAO: and its only November, long time yet for silly season
 
We don't have it that easy in the South either. Plenty of our bees are at 250 - 300 metres on windswept downland too !
Harsher conditions helps to weed out weaker lines !
 
Beekeeping, like keeping any animals or poultry for food production purposes, requires some basic knowledge and understanding of what you need to do with them to manage them, without this a new beekeeper will not last long or will struggle. Bearing in mind that, unlike most livestock, they are not domesticated and cannot be confined. They are subject to predators, parasites and diseases - all of which require vigilance and expertise to identify and in some cases treat.

There will be times when the bees do what they want to do and times when they don't want to do what you want them to do. You have to commit time and effort and work to their (and the season's) timings and schedules - not yours. They are not goldfish that only need water and food most of the time - they are a multi-facetted, collective, organism with a desire to survive and multiply, normally on their terms and time frames ! Very little in beekeeping is cast in stone - you need to think about what is going on and be prepared to react - sometimes when it is less than convenient.

If you intend to sell your honey then you face the trials and tribulations of extraction and jarring.

Is it hard ?

Yes, it can be, but standing next to a hive on a summer evening, when they have all been out foraging and the hum of the colony and the scent of ripening honey is thick in the air - the hard times seem to pale into insignificance. Getting to the end of a good season, seeing the last of a better than average crop stored and ready to be eaten or sold .... very satisfying. Finding all your colonies have survived a hard winter and are ready to explode and do it all again for you ... magical.

If it wasn't hard then everyone would be keeping bees - it's the look of awe when people find out you are a beekeeper - before you bore them to death with tales about your bees and mind boggling beekeeping facts - that makes it a special craft.
 
We don't have it that easy in the South either. Plenty of our bees are at 250 - 300 metres on windswept downland too !
Harsher conditions helps to weed out weaker lines !
And " a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor" (Roosevelt).
 
I decided that running 2 hives would mean that I would take forever to learn. You mention feedback cycles are slow, but also just exposure to different scenarios is hard to get. So I split to 8 hives in this my first full year. So, now I have seen the hives in many states. Requeening themselves, rebuilding themselves, queen introductions, failed queens, laying worker drone etc. Hours spent watching the entrances led me to spot one hive silently robbing out a split a few days after making the split. I have learnt so much with one hive running hot on dysentary for a day after introduction, what looked like CPBV but only 5 bees had it??, chalk brood of course and accidentally chilling my first colony on day 1. Having more hives certainly fast tracks the learning. I have had the opportunity to make many mistakes which I hope I won't repeat.

I also jumped straight into grafting year one, employing Demaree and Ben Harden to draw out queen cells. Between the you tube videos, websites such as The Apiarist, this forum and the patience of my local Bee club ( I ask a lot of questions each week) it really makes trying all this things out very achievable.

And as a prize I also made 50lb of probably ever so slightly tainted honey (not for sale). I was feeding some colonies hard in order to draw out comb as I started with just a load of foundation this year.

Next year I am looking more at expansion into an equal number of nucs to support the main producers. And I'll also need to draw out the supers as I was filling out the brood boxes this year. It's slow progress in the hills in the north of scotland.

So I would say in answer to the title. It is as hard as you want to make it. The hardest part I found was I learnt the framework and rhythm for the year. However, this has to be amended by your location and also each year being different. So then knowing what to expect from when the bees are likely to start swarming. When will there be a lack of forage. These are all unique to your location. Some of my failures were weather driven so there is another factor. The bees also don't follow any rigid rules ie. they haven't read the books or watched the videos and often do their own thing. I spent hours watching videos and reading books and taking many notes and it got so far. Most beginner books are just that and I felt that it didn't take long until I wanted more. It's not hard if you don't mind putting a little effort in. Nothing comes on a plate, but it isn't an insurmountable task. It also comes at great cost, so I'm waiting for the sales.
 
Is beekeeping hard ?
It’s a craft and different to working with any livestock I’ve come into contact with, experience can come in many forms, time, colony numbers education/tuition.
What I’ve found is the more you put into learning and that doesn’t have to be modules the more you get out, learning about behaviour and different manipulations can’t be put into years because we are always learning from them, don’t always be inside the box stand to one side and look at it with. An open mind and be enthusiastic and most of all love your craft that is timeless.
 

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