Why Become a Beekeeper?

The most popular question I get asked is, “Why bees?” That question always gets me thinking as there are so many reasons why my husband and I decided to begin beekeeping. Across the globe, honeybees are rapidly declining in population and when you really look into this fact further, it is quite sad. Honeybees are an indicator species. Indicator species actually indicate the overall health of an ecosystem. If the honeybee population is rapidly declining, that is indicative of an unstable, poor ecosystem. The honeybee crisis is telling us our ecosystem is in trouble. Honeybees are also considered a keystone species, meaning they play an integral role in maintaining healthy ecosystems and contribute to the biodiversity of the environment in which they live. Without honeybees, we would have less healthy foods to prepare and eat, we would have less diversity in the foods available for us to prepare and eat and numerous species would decline in population due to the lack of foods available for them to eat. The effects of a declining honeybee population clearly have the trickle-down effect and it will become a serious issue if we don’t act. These are probably the most significant reasons we wanted to start beekeeping and there are many more but I won’t bore you.

After we decided to keep honeybees, we knew the first step on this journey was education. I knew close to nothing about honeybees and if anyone knows me, they know I do nothing in life halfway. So, shockingly, I took several courses in beekeeping (specific to our region) to get prepared. I had a wonderfully, kind woman volunteer to mentor me on all things bees and provide unlimited hands-on experience working with her honeybees to supplement what I learned in the courses. As soon as spring kicked off in our area, we were off to inspect the bees. Within a couple of weeks, four ladies and myself were inspecting our hives on the weekends & learning together. My new bee friends were quick to tell me to buy bees and “just do it” and that’s exactly what we did!

We decided to purchase honeybees from my mentor’s two mentors. We ordered a package of bees from one mentor and a nuc of bees from her other mentor. On April 26, 2025, I picked up our three-pound package of bees (mated queen included). On May 28, 2025, I picked up our nuc of bees (new, mated queen included). A package of bees is usually three pounds of honeybees with a mated queen to which the bees are not yet familiar. Over a few to several days, the bees accept the new queen as the colony’s queen and they survive together in the hive. A nuc of bees is usually either five or eight frames of bees with a newly mated queen whom the bees have accepted as their queen. The queen is already laying eggs and has both worker and drone brood in various stages of development. The hive should also come with honey and nectar stores already on numerous frames. Most experienced beekeepers recommend starting with two hives (either packages or nucs) so the new beekeeper can compare the hives to one another, as no two hives behave similarly. No two hives behaving similarly was one lesson we learned exceptionally fast!

Anything about the south reminds me of home, so it seemed most fitting to have our hives named after southern women. Our package of bees became hive number one and was named Sweet Caroline and hive number two was the nuc of honeybees we named Ella Day. It was uneventful picking up the package of honeybees in the Salt Lake valley but the second my mentor and I opened the package we both began sweating. My queen was not in the queen cage! Instead of my one queen bee being in the queen cage there were about 6 worker bees in it. I immediately said, “Now what?”. We got to work straight away on getting the bees from the box into the hive so we could start searching for the queen, whom we hoped was in there somewhere amongst the 10,000 bees. And then I spotted a large ball the size of a tennis ball in the bottom of the hive. Sadly, my queen was being balled. My mentor and I worked frantically to free her and somehow, she was still alive, but barely. We knew she had taken a hit from being balled but we placed her back in the queen cage and hoped for the best but fearing the worst.

My queen was the most beautiful solid black and I decided to name her Matilda. Matilda means “mighty in battle” which was exactly what she had endured. The beekeeper I purchased the package of bees from delivered a new, mated queen the following afternoon since Matilda had likely died. We taped the new queen (in her cage) to the top of one of the frames and I waited at least five days to see if the bees had accepted her. After five days, I checked and the bees were aggressively on the queen cage and clearly telling me they had not yet accepted her, so I decided to give them two more days. After two days, they were still displaying aggressive behavior and I was baffled. I decided to do a mini-inspection to see if I could tell what was going on and that’s when I saw her … Matilda! My original queen was alive and laying eggs! The colony was not going to accept the new queen because the colony was queen right. A couple hours later, the extra queen was rehomed to a queenless hive.

Since my next colony was a nuc with an already accepted and laying queen, I had no work to do. I picked up the nuc when eight frames in the hive were established with eggs, larvae, capped worker and drone brood, honey and nectar. I picked the nuc up in the late evening and covered the front entrance with leaves for them to reorient to the new environment. Ella Day had a 2025 queen who was a gorgeous, golden yellow with a calm demeanor. I named her Kate. After four days in my yard, they had drawn comb on the empty two frames in the hive and were ready for a second deep. These bees arrived to me incredibly efficient and ready to go!

After these adventures, it was time to let the bees be bees.

Queen Matilda, 2025

Queen Kate, 2025 (photo credit CF 2025)