The honeybee is a miraculous creature that has a large variety of abilities and a primary contributor in helping to sustain our ecosystem. Here we will highlight several reasons why honeybees are so important:

-Pollination: Honeybees are responsible for pollinating our food crops and wild flora throughout our world. The honey bee will travel up to 2 miles when foraging for pollen and in some circumstances even further distances. When the honeybees are on their flight journeys, it is then that the fertilization of our food crops takes place. Honeybees alone pollinate roughly 80 percent of all flowering plants, which also includes 90 different food crops. Without the existence of the honeybee, our crop productions would be depleted, resulting in devastating food loss. The USDA has estimated that approximately one-third of the total human diet is derived directly or indirectly from insect-pollinated plants. In addition to crop pollination, honey bees pollinate wild plants, which are a food source for many animals, insects and birds. Without the existence of wild plants, sources of food for many animals in nature would disappear as well as our oxygen would become greatly diminished. So the next time you sit down to enjoy your next meal, bee sure to stop and thank God and a honeybee!

-Honey Production: When the worker bees are on their foraging flights, they collect nectar, pollen and water. While these substances are necessary for maintaining the inside of the hive, one of the things we get to enjoy outside of the hive is the ever delicious honey. After the bee collects the nectar, it is then broken down into simple sugars and stored inside of the honeycomb. The constant fanning of the honeybees' wings creates an evaporation effect, which in turn creates honey. A honey bee hive is the only insect capable of producing honey and on average, a healthy honeybee hive can produce approximately 55 pounds of surplus honey per year. This sweet and edible liquid is packed full of rich vitamins, enzymes, and proteins, which has proven to be effective in numerous medical scenarios. This leads us to the next topic below.

-Medicinal Benefits of Honey: As mentioned above, honey has many beneficial ingredients making it an energy rich food, also serving as a popular supplement when related to health. Honey has been widely used to treat high cholesterol, throat infections, fatigue, eczema, eye diseases, and bronchial cough, to name a few. It is also a recommended product for strengthening capillaries, increasing the rate of recovery, healing wounds and bacterial infections, stimulating organ function, and so much more. Honey (raw, unfiltered and unaltered) is an all-natural product that serves as an antioxidant, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antiproliferative (inhibits cell growth) and antimetastatic. Other bi-products of honey that are commonly distributed are bee pollen and bee wax. With the long history of the health benefits that can be related directly to the implementation of honey in the human diet, it is a must-have in your "medicine cabinet."

-Farming & Income: The saying is true, farmers make the world go round. Farmers around the world are responsible for supplying humans (roughly 7.8 billion humans) with food for daily consumption, which is typically produced in cultivated plant crops. Cultivated plant crops that require pollination in order to bear fruits, vegetables, wheat, flowers, etc., are owned by both commercial and smaller-scale farmers, who rely completely on crop production as a source of income. In an international survey that was completed in 2016, it was estimated that the annual global production of food that depends on pollination is between $235 and $577 billion. These farming operations also open numerous employment opportunities to individuals around the world. In the United States, the added value to agriculture from honey bee pollination is more than $9 billion annually, and many beekeepers earn extra income from renting colonies for pollination (Source: American Beekeeping Federation). These figures prove the positive impact honeybees have on not only our environment, but our economy.

If you are considering keeping honeybees, we have generated a list of helpful topics to review before you take the plunge into your new venture. While most beekeepers in the United States consider themselves hobbyist beekeepers, there is a great amount of information that is needed to fully understand the odds and ins of beekeeping. We believe that educating yourself about the expectations and realities of beekeeping can help you better decide if this hobby is one you are ready to commit to.

1. What is your reason for keeping bees?

A great place to begin when deciding to become a beekeeper, is what do you want to achieve? Whether you are seeking to keep bees as a hobby or as a business adventure, determining what you will invest into your beekeeping journey will help you better understand what may be required physically and financially.

2. Beekeeping Regulations

Prior to purchasing honey bees, it is recommended that you check with your local city and county officials to determine if there are regulations when it comes to beekeeping. You may want to be aware that while some cities allow honey bees within city limits, they may have stipulations on where they can be kept or how many hives you are allowed to have. In the United States, ordinances governing beekeeping are issued at the state and local levels.

3. Time Investment

While beekeeping isn't something you will have to tend to daily, there is still a great amount of attention that honey bees need. Many people believe that since bees tend to themselves in nature, that there is little maintenance involved when kept in a hive. Bees need weekly attention which can range from completing routine hive inspections, preparing supplemental feed, cleaning the hive or your equipment, harvesting honey or just general housekeeping. Failure to perform these necessary tasks will result in collapse of your colony due to lack of food, disease or issues such as a queen-less hive. You will also want to consider where you are located within your country, i.e. are you in a warmer or colder climate? Warmer areas in a southern location will likely require year-round attention.

4. Find a Local Beekeeper's Association or Mentor

As mentioned before, beekeeping requires a decent amount of knowledge about bees and their sustenance, but your best way to familiarize yourself with the odds and ins of beekeeping is to join a beekeeping group or connect with an active or retired beekeeper. These individuals can contribute a wealth of information, including the do's and don'ts of beekeeping, but it can also allow you the opportunity to gain hands-on experience that is extremely valuable. Being connected with a local beekeeper is also beneficial as they will be able to provide insight on topics that are unique to your location and climate. Another way to become more familiarized with beekeeping is registering for the online beekeeping courses offered through the PennState Extension Program. The online course was created for beginner beekeepers and discusses the science and practice of beekeeping. It also covers bee biology and behavior, hive management, equipment, bee products, and more. You can register online at https://extension.psu.edu/beekeeping-101

5. Hive Location & Resources

Another important thing to take into account when introducing bees to your yard is where you will place your beehive(s). The location of your hive(s) should be determined based upon available food and water sources, sunlight availability, and proximity to your home and neighbors. Placing your hive too close to a neighboring property could cause potential disputes as well as increase fear for those who are timid of bees. Other considerations of hive location placement are things like foot traffic around your property and exposure to recurrent high winds. It is typically recommended that the entrance of your hive face east/southeast and that morning sun hits the hive to warm the bees earlier in the day.

The first year of your beekeeping journey will require the most investment, as you will need to purchase the essential hive equipment and tools needed to properly care for your bees. For your first year of beekeeping, we recommend sticking to the basics and starting with the necessities. We have compiled a list of items that you will want to have on hand when you bring your bay-bees home.

1. A Complete Hive

Honey bees need a wooden hive for growing their colonies and for new beekeepers, we recommend the Langstroth-style hive. A Langstroth hive is a vertically modular beehive that consists of a bottom deep hive box, vertically hung frames for brood (placed inside the bottom box where the queen lays her eggs), a bottom board with entrance for the bees, an inner cover and an outer cover to provide protection from the weather. Supers can then be placed on top of the bottom box and consists of frames where honey is stored. At King Bee, we offer complete hive kits, which can be purchased as a set or individually. We also offer hive bodies assembled/unassembled and painted/unpainted.

2. Bees

There's no doubt about it, if you want to be a successful beekeeper, you will need.... BEES! In order to obtain bees, you will need to research suppliers (we recommend beginning in January) in your area who sell bees and contact the supplier to get on a pre-order/waitlist. You do not want to wait until Spring to try and order your bees, as many suppliers sell out early and bee shipments are usually completed in the months of March and April. We recommend package bees for new beekeepers as it is a smaller investment than purchasing a nuc hive. Package bees include a new mated queen (placed in a queen cage with nurse bees), 3 lbs of worker bees/drones and a container of sugar syrup.

3. Protective Clothing

While you familiarize yourself with your new bees, we recommend investing in protective clothing to decrease your chance of enduring a sting. While it is highly likely that you will experience being stung at some point during your beekeeping journey, you can purchase helpful items that will help to prevent these occurrences. Protective clothing can include: bee suits, jackets, veils and gloves. We offer a great assortment of these items and carry both adult and child sizes.

4. Essential Tools

Other tools and accessories you will want to have in your beekeeping arsenal:

-Bee Smoker + Smoker Fuel

-Hive tool

-Bee brush

-Frame grip

-Framer perch

-Queen clip

-Feeder

-A honeybee flaps its wings 12,000 to 15,000 times per minute!

-Every "worker" bee in a colony is female. The female bees are categorized into scout bees, nurse bees, defender bees, foragers and bees who take care of "housekeeping" duties.

-A mated queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs in ONE day! A queen bee has a lifespan of between 3 and 5 years.

-Honeybees have a certain dance (also known as the waggle dance) to communicate with other bees in their colony. These dances inform other bees of foraging locations,

-A foraging worker bee during the time of nectar flow lives approximately 30-45 days due to the nature of their demanding jobs. In the winter, she can live up to 6 months.

-Drones' (male bees) only job within the hive is to mate and eat. The drones die in the act of mating. In preparation for winter, drones are kicked out of the colony, as they are a drain on resources.

-The honeybees' hive must remain at 93 degrees Fahrenheit year round. In the winter months, bees will cluster together to insulate the queen and generate heat, but in the warmer summer months, they must fan and cool the hive to prevent overheating.

-A hive of bees flies 55,000 miles to generate one pound of honey. In retrospect, honeybees must visit two million flowers to gather just one pound of honey. In return, bees produce more than 260 million pounds of honey and about 5 million pounds of beeswax annually in the United States.

-When a worker honeybee stings a subject, they unfortunately die. Due to the fact that the bees' stinger is barbed, the stinger is typically ripped away from its body and remains intact on the subject that was stung. Honeybees do not look for an opportunity to sting, as they know this will result in their death, however, they will give their life to defend their hive.

-The almond crop is the only crop that depends entirely (100%) on the honeybee for pollination at bloom time. The California almond industry requires approximately 1.8 million colonies of honeybees in order to adequately pollinate nearly one million acres of bearing almond orchards. (Source: American Beekeeping Federation)

-Virgin queens go on mating flights away from their home colony where they will mate with multiple drones (male bees) before returning to the hive. Queen bees do not mate with drones from their home colony. If you notice that bees inside of your hive appear to have different coloring or markings, this is due to the fact that the queen mated with different drones.

**FAQ section is currently being updated. Please check back soon!**