Goals for Becoming a Beekeeper
Other than the personal enjoyment and satisfaction that most beekeepers crave, many people have wonderful goals in mind for their hobby before they ever even become beekeepers.
Some people may have an interest in becoming beekeepers so that they can help to aid in the growth and conservation of honeybee populations and help their environment. Some hope to help add value to their community by educating others about bees and beekeeping.
Some people get into beekeeping with one main goal, to make money from their hobby by maximizing the yield of bee by-products that can be harvested within their hives or with the hope to become a commercial beekeeper, involved in things like providing pollination services.
Goals Specific to Your Apiary
No matter what your overall goals were when you started out in this fascinating hobby, as you continue to keep bees, both yourself and your hobby keep growing. Your goals for your apiary and each individual colony will continue to change and grow, too.
Considering the goals you have for the upcoming beekeeping season can help make it easier to plan for the tasks you’ll want to complete and the equipment you’ll need to have on hand before you truly need it.
Your specific situation, limitations, and what’s happening in your life should also be considered prior to making plans and goals for your beekeeping hobby.
Goals for Any Beekeeper to Consider, Any Time of Year:
- Review and amp up your record-keeping & photographing/videography practices.
- Ensure to have equipment, bee feed, and mite treatments on hand and ready before you really need them.
- Plan as many beekeeping tasks as possible throughout the season to work around potential conflicts with things like vacations, events, appointments, monetary limitations, and inclement weather.
Impacts on Your Seasonal Apiary Goals
Whether you’re a brand-new beekeeper or have successfully overwintered your colonies will greatly influence the goals you might be considering ahead of a new season.
Below are some great examples of beekeeping goals you may want to consider, based on your level of beekeeping experience so far and where you’re at in your beekeeping hobby.
Goals for Brand-New to the Hobby, First-Year Beekeepers to Consider
- Source Your Bees – Ensure you’ve ordered your bees as far in advance of springtime (early April) as possible, many suppliers sell out early. Learn more about hive checks from another snippet here.
- Get Ready! – Ensure you know what type of hive you’ll use and that you have your equipment ready. It should be painted, set up and ready to go before the day you bring your new bees home
- Continued Education – As any beekeeper knows, learning about honeybees truly never stops! As you progress through your first beekeeping season, learning as much as possible can help aid in your success for years to come. (Check out PerfectBee’s Academy Syllabus for the perfect way to do just that!)
- Learn About Threats to Bees – Pay special attention to lessons on diseases, pests, and situations that could possibly harm the bees in your bee yard.
- Find a Local Club or Mentor – Learning more through in-person resources like beekeeping clubs and mentors can be another invaluable resource to any beekeeper, especially new-bees.
- Work Toward a Healthy Colony – Help to make sure your colony is healthy and ready to face their first winter in your bee yard by doing frequent hive checks during the season and ensuring that they have the honey and pollen stores needed to survive.
Goals for Second (third, fourth, etc.) Year Beekeepers to Consider
- Checking In on Hives Early in the Season – At the start of the year, most beekeepers are doing all that they can to successfully overwinter their colonies and checking in on colonies to see how many have done so. Learn more about Checking Your Beehive Has Signs of Life with little disturbance in another Snippet.
- Complete Beehive Postmortems – Thoroughly inspect any lost hives to figure out what caused them to perish and use that knowledge to help have better success with other colonies. Learn more in A Beehive Autopsy.
- Assess the Size of Your Colonies – Upon your first inspection of the year, take note of the size & health of your colonies to better plan tasks.
- Plan for Feeding Your Colonies – Decide the type of feed and feeders you will use and ensure that you have it ready and available if your bees should need it.
- Splits, Swarms & Hive Capacity, Oh My! – Decide how you’ll manage the issue of swarms and splitting hives within your apiary and make a plan to manage hive capacity.
Setting your beekeeping goals and knowing what you hope to accomplish in your bee yard throughout a season can be a great start in making those goals a reality. By setting achievable goals, any beekeeper can help aid in the success of their thriving colonies and contribute to healthier bee yards.
Learn More
Learn more about beekeeping goals by reading through our articles on “Questions the New Beekeeper Should Answer First” and “The Hidden Benefits of Beekeeping” Check out some goals you might not have considered as well with “The Many Ways to Enjoy Bees” as well.
Don’t forget to consider things like Beekeeping Advocacy and Involving Family and Friends in Beekeeping when thinking of your own goals.
Specific to your hives and tasks you’ll be completing, think about what’s mentioned in A Practical Guide to a Thriving Colony to help shape your task-related goals. Read through “An Overview of the Main Threats to Bees” to shape your pest-oriented goals.
For help with record-keeping and tracking what you see in your bee yard, you print a beautiful calendar guide and resource that was created by one of our PerfectBee Contributors, Marta. Thank you for sharing, Marta!
Colony Members can read the following Academy lessons related to the important goals mentioned above:
