In València, in eastern Spain, in the valley of the river Escalona, there are a group of caves known, in the local Catalan language, as the "Coves de l'Aranya," the "Spider Caves." You'd think the caves would be known for something spider-related, but I haven't been able to find any mention of spiders at all. Rather, these caves are renowned for their prehistoric rock art, and among the petroglyphs is the oldest known depiction of honey consumption by human beings. It is understandably difficult to date this kind of art, but I've seen estimates which put the work between 6000 and 8000 years old.[1] [2]

From humble beginnings in honey hunting, people eventually started to keep bees and maintain hives. That being said, honey bees, even to this day, remain wild animals. They are not truly domesticated in the same way dogs or cattle are. By maintaining a hive and looking after a colony of bees, people form a symbiotic relationship with the colony whereby the bees produce useful goods, like wax and honey, in exchange for security against pests, predators, the elements, and various other misfortunes.

For most beekeepers throughout history, I'd imagine those useful goods have been the primary motivators for their apicultural endeavors. Sure, many of us are in it for the love of the art or the bees themselves, but the goal is the same no matter the motivation: to bring about and maintain conditions for the strongest, healthiest colonies possible. As a general rule, the larger and stronger a colony becomes, the more honey it will produce, given it has the hive space, ventilation, and other necessary conditions. The bees use the stuff as a means to store food long-term because, unlike other insects, they live through the winter. Honey is how they preserve their perishable nectar, which is only available during part of the year.

If you remember that the broadest goal of beekeeping is to maintain strong and healthy colonies, then the honey and wax production will follow as a natural matter of course, and you'll be able to make use of the excess production.

If you're reading this article, it's likely you wish to join the ranks of this rich, ancient tradition, and to improve the lives of some of the colonies in your area, perhaps even introduce new colonies. Use this guide as a road-map to your education on the subject. It's meant to briefly cover every aspect of the subject you'll ever need to know about, a high-level, bird's eye view of the art in its totality.

Apis mellifera: The Western Honey Bee

If you live in Europe, the Americas, Australia, the Pacific, or Africa, Apis mellifera is likely the honey bee you're most familiar with. The quintessential honey bee. Any decent exposition on the subject of apiculture ought to begin with a description of the subjects of the endeavor. It's important to know who we're trying to help, after all.

Who Are These Guys?

And where did they come from? It is likely that the lineage originally emerged in Asia. Indeed, all of the other honey bee species are also found in Asia, and many of them live there exclusively. But what about the modern population of A. mellifera? The major theories I've seen speculate that after the bees' origination in Asia, populations spread to the Middle East and Africa.[3] One of these places introduced the bees to strong selection for adaptation, and the bees thereby became suited to a much wider range of environments and began colonizing territory further afield, including Europe and the rest of Africa.

Habitat: Where are wild bees found?

Apis is a genus of cavity-nesting bees. Furthermore, for honey bees, the cavity must be dry, well-ventilated, and easily defensible. These requirements preclude a lot of habitats. For example, they avoid nesting in the ground because underground spaces are too damp, cold, and constricted to hang their wax combs and dry their honey.

In addition to a voluminous, dry cavity, the bees also need to be near an abundance of wildflowers and grasses that bloom through a significant portion of the year. This is their food source. They need pollen as a source of protein and nectar as a source of energy. The nectar is what becomes honey.

With all of this in mind, which natural environments best fit the bill? Meadows and grasslands offer the flowers and grasses that make for good foraging, but appropriate natural cavities are often more scarce, human-made structures notwithstanding. On the other hand, woodlands and forests, especially old-growth forests, feature abundant shelter opportunities. Woodpeckers, rot, and storm damage can carve deep hollows into mature or isolated trees.

For all the advantages forests offer when it comes to shelter, they often lack the same abundance of food offered by meadows and grasslands. As a result, the best natural habitat for honey bees is where these two environments meet. Wild bees will often set up shop in the trees and shrubs along a forest's edge where they still have access to the flowers and grasses of nearby fields.

On average, the bees of a given colony will forage up to 3km (2 miles) from their hive. Under certain conditions, such as during the early spring or late summer when forage is sparse, the bees will increase their working range to about a 5km (3 mile) radius. They prefer closer, richer nectar and pollen sources for efficiency's sake.

Food: Preferred Forage

The bees' primary nutritional sources are nectar, the main energy source, and pollen, which contains proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals. They also forage for plant resin and tree sap, which they bring back to the hive to be turned into propolis, which they use as a disinfectant and sealant for their hive. Propolis is important for the colony's health.

The forage a colony favors will depend on several different factors. When food stores are low, a colony will prioritize foragers who prefer flowers with high nectar flow. When brood-rearing is active, especially during spring, a colony will produce young foragers who collect pollen.

There are also numerous wild plants and cultivated crops known to be attractive to bees, though very dependent on locale. Lavender, for example, is grown in parts of the Pacific Northwest, and it is known to be particularly good flower for bees[4] due to its bloom duration, nectar flows,[5] and seasonal reliability.

A Brief History of Beekeeping

As I mentioned in the introduction, people have been eating honey for at least several millennia. What's not to like? The stuff is delicious and full of energy. Even the wax is useful. What likely began as an opportunistic treat progressed to purposeful honey hunting, and then eventually evolved into the keeping of hives as we do today.

Prehistory

From petroglyphs in caves to ancient Egyptian bee iconography dating to the Old Kingdom of the Bronze Age, there are plenty of indications of an association between humans and honey bees in prehistory. There's also physical evidence: given that beeswax has a predictable and constant composition of specific lipids, it's possible to detect the wax at archaeological sites. For example, beeswax has been identified in lipid residues found in pottery that was used by Neolithic farmers.[6]

Greece & Egypt

There's an island in the eastern Aegean, off the coast of Ionia, known as Agathonisi. During the Hellenistic period there was a settlement here called Kastraki. The site was excavated between 2006 and 2010, and the work revealed over 10,000 pieces of ceramic beehive vessel fragments, suggesting high apiculture activity on the island.[7]

In ancient Egypt as well, bees were an important industry. In fact, the bee was a symbol of Kingship in Lower Egypt. I've also been seeing a lot of references to the Fifth Dynasty relief from the Solar Temple of Nyuserra. It is apparently the earliest known depiction of purposeful apiculture, containing four scenes which show the comb being removed from the hives, the extraction of the honey from the comb, and the preservation of the honey. There are hieroglyphic inscriptions between the scenes, and they've been interpreted as the scenes' labels: "hymning," "filling," "pressing," and "sealing."[8] Most Egyptian hives were constructed with pottery.

Medieval

Bees were often treated as an annual crop in many parts of medieval Europe. Like the Egyptians and their terracotta jars, the woven skeps used by the Europeans didn't provide a means of accessing the comb without destroying the hive. Because of this technological limitation, beekeepers would kill the bees at the end of the season before attempting to destroy the hive to access the wax and honey.

It should come as no surprise that destroying a hive dooms the colony that called it home, and everyone who practiced apiculture in this fashion had to acquire new colonies at the beginning of every season. Perhaps that was more easily accomplished before Varroa mites decimated feral bee populations. Generally, it was done by capturing a swarm or causing an established colony to split.

Early Modern

The 18th century saw major advances in artificial hive technology: in 1770, Thomas Wildman introduced a skep with a removable woven lid and frames to be placed inside. The frames, in particular, are an important development because they discourage the bees from building their own structure. When stacked upon each other, Wildman found that the bees moved between the skeps, and that he could remove hives without incident as the bees migrated between them.

Modern

The popular modern hive, the Langstroth, was developed in 1851 by Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth as an improvement upon Wildman's designs. He replaced the woven skeps with wooden boxes and constructed them around removable frames. With the older skep design, the bees would deposit wax between the frames and the body of the skep to strengthen the hive, and in the process the frames would become firmly inseparable. The Langstroth hive prevents the bees from affixing the frames to the rest of the hive, which makes it easy to remove individual frames without disturbing the bees.

Products of the Hive

Honey is a prized food. Beeswax is eminently useful. There are even commercial opportunities for propolis, royal jelly, and even the bees themselves.

Beeswax

Compared to paraffin, beeswax offers several advantages as a fuel for lighting. It tends to burn longer, and more cleanly with less smoke. It also has a pleasant honey-like aroma. These qualities make beeswax well-suited for candle making, and candles made from high-quality wax are often sold at a premium price point.

Beeswax also offers natural emollient action, which protects against moisture loss. This is why it's used so often in lotions, ointments, salves, and other cosmetic and hygiene products.

Traditionally, beeswax has also been used in food production, such as in coatings for cheeses like Gouda and Edam. It makes a decent sealant for jars and bottles, as well.

Honey

The quintessential hive product, the reason those who came before us became fascinated with these insects in the first place, and by far the most delicious. The colony's excess honey can be collected, preserved, and packaged for storage or distribution.

As a food product, consumers and producers value honey for several characteristics. Among the most important are the flavor profile, color, moisture content, and crystallization behavior. Single-source and regional honeys can also be highly sought-after.

The flavor profile is heavily influenced by the bees' source of nectar. Each flower species produces a different nectar with different combinations of sugars, oils, and trace minerals, and the resulting honey reflects those traits.

The most recognizable example is probably clover honey, very common in commercial honey. You've almost certainly seen this on offer at your local supermarket. It's known for its light, mild, and sweet flavor. In comparison, lavender honey has a more floral taste and aroma. At the other end of the spectrum, buckwheat honey is a darker color, with a malty flavor and aroma that has been likened to barnyards and feet.

Propolis

This is admittedly more of a niche product compared to beeswax or honey. It also requires special traps to collect at an appreciable scale. Demand is strongest in East Asia and Europe where it's popular as an immunity supplement. You'll generally see tinctures, lozenges, and skin creams on offer.

Also called "bee glue," propolis is a resinous substance that bees make from foraged tree sap to seal and sterilize their hive.

Royal Jelly

Bees feed a substance called "royal jelly" to the larvae and queen. It's rich in protein and hormones, and is produced by the "nurse" bees. Much like propolis, royal jelly is valued in the cosmetic and supplement industries and is labor-intensive to harvest at scale. The colony must be stimulated to raise many queen cells, and they have to be collected before the queens emerge.

Market Bees & Queens

Bees are sold commercially as packages, nucleus colonies, or mated queens.

Demand is generally seasonal, and is highest during the spring in North America and Europe new colonies are being started and failed colonies replaced.

There's also a pollination rental market whereby, for example, an orchard will rent bees for the purposes of pollination. As a repeatable service as opposed to a limited product, this can be more profitable than honey production.

Pests & Diseases

Bees are quite vulnerable in modern times. Feral honey bees used to be quite common throughout Europe and North America. Langstroth, who I mentioned earlier, wrote about how easy it was to find wild swarms. What happened?

Varroa destructor Mites

Varroa destructor mites evolved alongside Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee, which has natural defenses against it. During the 1980s, the mites began to spread globally and make contact with Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, which lacked such defenses.

It's quite a serious affliction: they feed on the fat bodies of the pupae and adults, transmit harmful viruses like Deformed Wing Virus (DWV), and cause cascading immune suppression and, eventually, colony collapse. It is extremely important, for your colony and all of the colonies in your area, that you frequently monitor your hive for signs of this condition and to take steps to mitigate it when necessary.

Tracheal Mites

Acarapis woodi, the tracheal mite, was also first detected in the United States in the 1980s. Researchers were documenting the near-disappearance of feral colonies before Varroa mites even became widespread.

Fortunately, the impact of these mites has been diminishing. A combination of selective breeding and natural adaptation have made the bees more resistant to these mites. It also helps that the mites don't vector the harmful viruses that Varroa mites do.

Viruses

Speaking of viruses, it's also worth outlining the major plagues affecting modern honey bees. Most of them are transmitted by the Varroa mites, the most devastating of which is the Deformed Wing Virus (DWV), which causes bees to emerge with poorly-formed wings, short lifespans, and diminished ability to learn and forage.

Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV) is also associated with Varroa. It causes rapid paralysis, trembling, and death of adult bees, which often results in sudden colony collapse.

There's also Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (CBPV), which is not associated with Varroa, and results in trembling, deformed bees that cluster at hive entrances.

Predators

Bears really do like honey, and they will go after your hives. They also seem to enjoy the brood and the larvae. This is a real concern for the people I know in my local area who keep bees.

Skunks are also known to scratch at the hive at night, and then eat the bees that come out to defend it.

Mice can also enter hives, especially during the winter. They'll eat the wax, honey, and the brood. They also tend to damage the combs in the process.

A Broad Overview on Keeping Hives

For the beginning beekeeper, it might help to bread the process down by season:

Autumn

It is presently early autumn as I write this article, and the final honey harvests are being completed in my region. Autumn is, in a lot of ways, the first season of beekeeping, where the coming year's journey begins. It's a time to assess your colony's food storage, take steps to improve their health, plan the next year's production, and to prepare for the coming winter.

Winter

During the cold months, it is important to regularly observe the hives. Check the hives' weight to ensure colonies have enough food stores. Learn how to insulate the hives for warmth and protection from wind, and regularly check for moisture buildup. Condensation is even more dangerous to bees than the cold.

As you use this time to plan for the coming season, you should order new equipment and colonies ahead of time.

Spring

As winter turns to spring, you'll start to shift your focus towards promoting the growth of your colonies and preventing them from swarming. Temperatures begin to rise and nectar flows begin, and as your colonies begin to rapidly expand it's important to ensure they have space to store all that nectar, for example by using supers.

Adding brood boxes can also prevent crowding and reduce swarming risk. Generally speaking, you want to avoid swarming because the half of the colony that parts from the parent colony often flies away and is lost. It can take weeks for the remaining bees and the new queen to rebuild to the size of the original colony, and you lose productivity in the meantime. To add insult to injury, the swarming bees can also become a public nuisance in populated areas.

Spring is also an important time for Varroa mite monitoring. It's important to measure and keep records of your mite infestation rate. For example, you can use the sugar role as an inexpensive means of doing so. It is often preferred because it's not lethal to the bees, but it is not as accurate as the alcohol wash test, which removes all the mites from the bees (leading to accurate and consistent counts) but kills the bees in the process.

Routine testing helps prevent asymptomatic buildup that can collapse colonies in the late fall. In most management systems, infestation rates greater than two or three mites per one hundred bees indicates that treatment is needed.

Summer

Summer is a time of production and harvest. It's important to ensure the bees have ample space for food storage, plenty of water in hot or dry climates, and are protected against dearth periods and diseases.

Add supers during the main nectar flows to provide ample storage space. Once the honey has been capped and the moisture falls below about 18%, the honey can be harvested. Proper moisture content is important to prevent fermentation of the honey. You can use a refractometer to measure it.

Once you've identified a ripe frame, you need to remove it without taking bees with you. This is accomplished with one-way gates built into the frame, by using fume boards, and with blowers or brushes to physically remove the bees.

Having separated the frame from the bees, you need to remove the wax cappings the bees used to seal the comb. You can use a heated knife, and there are specialized uncapping forks made for the purpose. You can save the cappings for their beeswax.

Harvesting, Packaging, & Storage

What happens next depends on the scale of your production. Large producers often have access to specialized centrifuges that can extract the honey without damaging the comb. This can allow the comb to be reused, which saves the bees the effort of rebuilding the comb with new wax, leading to a more efficient operation.

Small-scale and natural beekeepers often crush the comb by hand and strain it through cheesecloth or mesh. There are also fruit and honey presses that can make the process easier. It does destroy the comb, but it does yield wax for use in candles or cosmetics.

After pressing, the honey will contain bits of wax, bee parts, pollen clumps, and propolis. From here, it often gets poured through a large sieve or colander lined with fine mesh or cheesecloth to remove large debris. In addition, filtering through an even finer mesh is often done to achieve better clarity while still retaining natural pollen. Honey advertised as "raw" honey is not typically finely filtered, which preserves more of the natural enzymes and pollens.

Before bottling and storage there are still a few more steps to consider. After the straining and filtering the honey is left to settle in a tank or bucket. Over the course of a few days, air bubbles and fine wax particles will rise to the top and form a frothy layer, which can be skimmed off, reducing the total impurities which make it into the final product.

Finally, we have to consider the moisture content of the batch. It is important that the honey achieve a moisture content below about 18%. Above this threshold, the honey can ferment. While it's not toxic and is actually still edible, but it loses its viability as a commercial product. I'm afraid there just aren't many people who like sour, yeasty honey with their tea and toast.

You can check the moisture level of your batch with a refractometer. If you find that the moisture content is slightly too high, you can gently warm the honey to encourage evaporation, being mindful not to exceed about 100F / 38C. You can also mix the honey with a much drier batch to yield a combined batch with a moisture level closer to the target threshold.

At long last, we come to the bottling. After ensuring your jars and lids are clean and dry you can begin slowly pouring the honey. Pouring slowly prevents trapping air bubbles. You should also carefully clean any residue from the rim of the jars before sealing. If you're planning to sell the honey, it must be labeled according to local regulations. Such labels usually include weight, origin, and information as to the extent of processing.

Properly bottled raw honey can last indefinitely, though it may crystallize naturally over time. Just keep it in a cool, dry place away from sunlight and moisture. No refrigeration needed.

Other Domesticated Bees

While the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most familiar species kept by humans, it is not the only one that can be managed for pollination or production. Several other types of bees have been domesticated or semi-domesticated, each suited to specific climates, crops, or conditions.

Bumble Bees

Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are large, fuzzy, social insects found mostly in temperate regions. Unlike honey bees, they live in small colonies, usually 50 to 400 individuals. They build in underground cavities, abandoned rodent burrows, or grass tussocks. Their colonies last for only one season: a new queen starts in spring, builds a nest, raises workers, and by autumn produces males and new queens that will mate and overwinter.

Commercial rearing of bumble bees began in the late 20th century, primarily to pollinate greenhouse crops like tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries. They are especially valuable because they perform “buzz pollination,” vibrating flowers to release pollen that honey bees cannot easily access. People now sell bumble bee colonies to farmers for use in greenhouses and open fields, particularly in cooler or cloudier climates where honey bees are less active.

While they do not make large quantities of honey, bumble bees play an essential role in agriculture. Their ability to fly in low temperatures and poor light makes them reliable pollinators when other bees stay in the hive.

Mason Bees

Mason bees (Osmia spp.) are solitary bees named for their habit of using mud or clay to seal their nesting chambers. Each female builds her own nest, often in hollow reeds, holes in wood, or commercially supplied nesting tubes. She provisions each cell with pollen and nectar, lays a single egg, and seals it before moving on.

Because they are solitary, mason bees are gentle and rarely sting. They are extraordinarily efficient pollinators. One mason bee can pollinate as many flowers as a hundred honey bees in the same time, making them ideal for fruit tree orchards and home gardens. Beekeepers who manage mason bees provide nesting materials and protect them from parasites, then collect the cocoons in autumn for cleaning and cold storage until spring.

Mason bees do not produce honey or wax, but their value lies in pollination. They emerge early in spring and work well in cool, damp weather, complementing honey bees and other pollinators. Managing mason bees is simple and rewarding, making them popular among both hobbyists and commercial growers seeking sustainable pollination alternatives.

References

  1. Haralampos Harissis, Edited by F. Hatjina, G. Mavrofridis, R. Jones. (2017). Beekeeping in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the present. p. 18. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
  2. Ullmann, Fritz (2003). Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons.
  3. Han, Fan; Wallberg, Andreas; Webster, Matthew T (2012). From where did the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) originate?. Ecology and Evolution. 2 (8): 1949–1957.
  4. K. Pendergrass, M. Vaughan, J. Williams. (2008). Plants for Pollinators in Oregon. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
  5. Wilson, J.S.; Young, J.G.; Wilson, L.T. The Bee Communities of Young Living Lavender Farm, Mona, Utah, USA. Diversity 2024, 16, 119. https://doi.org/10.3390/d16020119
  6. Roffet-Salque M, et. al. Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers. Nature. 2015 Nov 12;527(7577):226-30. doi: 10.1038/nature15757. PMID: 26560301.
  7. I. Karatasios, A. Hein, N.Müller, P. Triantafyllides, V. Kilikoglou, Technological insights into the ancient ceramic beehive production of Agathonisi island, Greece, Applied Clay Science, Volume 82, 2013, Pages 37-43, ISSN 0169-1317, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clay.2013.06.012.
  8. M. Hammad. 2018. Bees and Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt (A Historical Study).