Your energy for beekeeping
In January, I attended a large bee meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. For me, it was a significant event. Your individual beekeeping energy at that gathering was palpable. I was honored to have beekeepers come by our podcast booth and share their time and experiences with us. I enjoyed every one of our conversational interactions.
Beekeepers are a diverse group — beginners to old-agers. One beekeeper at the meeting was in his 90s. Yet youthful beekeepers were also frequent visitors to our podcast booth. Your energy inspired me. You made beekeeping, once again, feel fresh to me. As it were, you did more for me than I could ever do for you. Your vitality and passion inspired me to wonder about our individual beekeeping pathways. During our interactions, you were all beekeepers, but you were all different. For some people, what is it about beekeeping?
For those of you new to beekeeping, my following comments probably won’t make much sense — in fact, they may not even make much sense to those of you who have been keeping bees for many years. Even so, after you’ve kept bees for several years — say 5-10 years — something happens … as though beekeeping becomes a part of you. I suppose it could be said that you grow you own memories.
Each of us who are still keeping bees can name several people who once kept them but are now out of the business. The reasons for their departure are myriad. The fact is, some people stay and some people go, not just in beekeeping but in everything. Why? I don’t know. And how can you tell who will go and who will stay? Again, I don’t know but I have seen the following reasons time and again.
Common reasons for leaving beekeeping
- It became boring. For some of us, doing the same things over and over again becomes tiring — sooner or later. After a while, you’ve produced honey (even comb honey), collected pollen, taken a colony from the wall of a house, raised some queens, tried different styles of equipment … ad infinitum. Some of us just burn out. Not much that anyone can do to prevent it …
