Why do you keep bees?

[Ammerbee]

I've found the beekeepers I've met to have so many stories about how and why they keep bees - there seems to be so much about beekeeping, but very little about what 'drives' the beekeeper

 

[Erichalfbee]

I keep bees because I wanted to spend more money than I could afford in my retirement. To spend that retirement boring my friends with incessant stories about swarms and honey. I've made quite a few new friends ( and the odd enemy) equally mad as me. And I have discovered untold patience and tolerance in my husband.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Why do you keep bees?

To produce honey.

 

[kighill]

I started following my eldest brother taking a beekeeping course. My brother lives a couple of hundred miles away and was rather nomadic at the time moving from one end of the country to the other. One of his moves involved a four hundred mile journey and he did not fancy taking the bees on such a journey and left them with me.
I took a course on beekeeping and now have numerous hives, my brother is no longer a beekeeper having moved twice to the Shetlands and back now living in the direction of Eastbourne.
I enjoy having bees and hope my brother starts up again. With the bees we always have something to chat about.
Of course now I look towards a honey crop to help support my hobby. I enjoy all aspects of beekeeping and take a lot of pleasure from helping others into the hobby.

 

[GaryB]

Just because they are fascinating creatures. Their life cycle and their (sometimes) organised hive community is somewhat compelling. Honey is a bonus (for me anyway). Bees are supposedly predictable, but when they are not, which is most of the time, THERE is the challenge. Maybe it's is the age old urge of man to control nature (and usually not succeeding) that drives us.

 

[madasafish]

I've found the beekeepers I've met to have so many stories about how and why they keep bees - there seems to be so much about beekeeping, but very little about what 'drives' the beekeeper

To become rich.

 

[REDWOOD]

To become rich.

Rich in life or rich in money.

 

[domino]

Because I don't have a pool big enough to keep sharks.

 

[enrico]

I have absolutely no idea. It just happened!

 

[For want of a better word]

So they could keep me.

Yeghes da

 

[Ammerbee]

Interesting - how do you 'understand' your bees - sometimes beekeepers talk about 'instinct' or hives having 'personalities' - since starting to keep bees myself I have to say I feel an empathy I hadn't expected

 

[Ammerbee]

get baby sharks?

 

[Zante]

I haven't started yet, 2017 will be my first year although I have helped out during my apprenticeship last season.
I got into beekeeping mostly because I started making wine, I later tried making mead, and liked it much better.
The more I read about beekeeping and the more I liked the activity itself, and in the end I decided to actually do a course and see if I'd still like it in reality. Since I have 2 nucs booked to get started next year I'd say that the answer to that is yes.

 

[Zante]

Because I don't have a pool big enough to keep sharks.

You might want to look into bamboo sharks.

 

[SDM]

I keep bees because it satisfies my animal hording needs.
Just try keeping 3-5 million cats.

 

[chrisb]

Doctor stated that I would benefit from a calm pastime something to slow me down, heard that keeping bees was calming as nothing is done fast so helps to slow you down, and away I go

so far the effects have been

the ability to run faster than ever..
the ability to dodge multiple flying objects ( ninja style )
the ability to make my Blood pressure monitor hit red more times then before
the ability to reduce my bank balance more than before
the ability to aggravate the wife more than before
the ability to string multiple naughty words together

though I have also had a lot of pleasure from them in so many ways

 

[Millet]

Doctor stated that I would benefit from a calm pastime something to slow me down, heard that keeping bees was calming as nothing is done fast so helps to slow you down, and away I go

so far the effects have been

the ability to run faster than ever..
the ability to dodge multiple flying objects ( ninja style )
the ability to make my Blood pressure monitor hit red more times then before
the ability to reduce my bank balance more than before
the ability to aggravate the wife more than before
the ability to string multiple naughty words together

though I have also had a lot of pleasure from them in so many ways

 

[Ammerbee]

wow - good luck with that - I made some mead - not great ha ha

 

[Zante]

wow - good luck with that - I made some mead - not great ha ha

My first ones weren't great either, but not bad once they'd aged a bit. Now I'm making mostly metheglins and melomels.
Starting to think I'd like to try and make a batch of braddock to see how it turns out.
Consider I make wine type of meads, not ale-type.

 

[user 6228]

its about the maths and the physics they embody, from these aspects they are a very interesting puzzle to understand. The more I get into the puzzle the more i see the beekeeping and academic views of the thermal behaviour of bees are like some one looking through a keyhole into a very large building and thinking they know all of it. If I wont be able to open the door at least I can is try to look in through the physics window.


When you have 30,000 sensor arrays with distributed computation solving the partial differential equation of heat transfer below must be easy, since the honey bees are dealing with one that has terms that cover population size growth and longevity, Nectar and pollen availablity, etc etc.