We all know bees are the greatest pollinators. But for beekeepers what are the major benefits of beekeeping? Besides pollination, there are countless benefits of beekeeping, including honey, propolis, wax, life lessons, health benefits, etc.
From the larvae to the queen, each and every bee of a colony will benefit you as a beekeeper. Let’s dive into the 11 major benefits of beekeeping.
1) Enhance Crops Production
Bees are capable of foraging miles away from their colony. During foraging, they participate in pollination. Because of pollination by bees crop production also increases.
In the United States, most farmers start beekeeping as a part-time work besides farming. It is often found crop production increases up to 300% with bees than without bees having around.
So, you can understand how beneficial beekeeping would be for agriculture. If you can place your apiary in a crop field, you don’t have to provide extra food to your bees too.
2) Garden
Bees are attracted to various flowers to collect nectar. During their foraging in a garden, they also perform pollination on various plants. So, you will see a blast in blossom and fruit production in your garden.
As well as you will also discover new diverse flowers and other plants in your garden. Because there is a chance that bees collect pollen from a flower and leave it to another flower of a different type.
Bees will attract other flying insects, and animals in your garden too. I have seen birds, butterflies, and dragonflies traffic increase in my garden after I started beekeeping.
3) Honey
Honey is one of the highest nutritious foods ever found. It is also called “Honey is the cure for all diseases”. So, you can understand how much health benefits honey contains.
Bees store honey to survive the winter as they won’t go outside during winter. So, honey keeps them warm and energetic during harsh environments. Honey also helps to grow children’s mental health, and strength.
Beekeepers can extract excess honey from beehives. This honey will be undoubtedly 100% solid. Most of the honey found in the supershop is not 100% solid. The main aim of most beekeepers also to extract excess honey for their family.
4) Royal Jelly
Worker bees feed royal jelly to the bee brood which they selected as their future queen. As you know, a queen is the main head of a honey bee colony. Queen runs the entire colony. Also, she is the only woman who is capable of laying fertilized eggs.
This is why worker bees feed the younger queen a special jelly known as royal jelly. This increases her strength and reproduction capabilities.
It is proven Royal jelly enhances human mating ability. There are so many other benefits of royal jelly for the overall health of a human.
5) Bee Pollen
Bee pollen is the small round-shaped pellets that bees collect from flowers and crops. They produce honey from these bee pollens and nectars of flowers.
Beekeepers uses pollen trap to extract a portion of bee pollen when workers are about to enter the hive. Bee pollens help to cure dog allergies. It is often found bee pollen helps to enhance the overall immunity of humans and other pets.
6) Beeswax And Candle
Bees produce natural wax to build their hive. We all know these waxes are used to produce candles. If you are a beekeeper you can also produce candles from beeswax.
Besides, you can produce cosmetics, health care products, etc from beeswax. Beeswax wraps are also becoming popular day by day as an alternative to plastics.
7) Health Benefits
Have you ever seen beekeepers getting stung by bees but don’t show any reaction? How do they do?
Because with time they gain the immune to bee stings. It obviously takes a lot of time and practice.
It is not suggested for normal people to get stung by bees intentionally to gain immunity. Because bee swarms can be dangerous if you try to disturb them.
Beekeepers gain immunity to bee stings because of their practice of proper beekeeping. With time beekeepers also learned how not to get stung quite often.
Mental Health Benefits Of Beekeeping
Beekeepers are usually mentally stronger than normal people. Beekeepers spend more time with bees. They learn so many things from bee’s life, and how things go in a honey bee colony.
They learn how to help bees in harsh environments. Beekeepers also become able to interact with bees without getting stung. This makes a beekeeper stronger mentally and physically.
8) Childs Mental Growth
We know kids learn from their environment. Their mental growth depends on the overall things they interact with and see around them. If a kid from his childhood spends even a little time regularly observing a bee’s lifestyle, he becomes mentally stronger than normal kids.
Because early age is the more curious age. Children are more curious to learn new things. Children learn how to survive in the worst situations from the bee’s life.
They also learn how to keep unity and work hard from a honey bee colony. Overall, spending time around a honey bee colony will effectively enhance the mental health of a child.
9) Life Lesson
Honey bee lives in a democratic colonial life. There are mainly 3 types of bees in a colony.
- Queen.
- Drone.
- Workers.
The queen is the only reproducible person in the colony. She leads the entire colony. Drones participate in mating flight with the queen. Workers do the rest to learn the colony.
A honey bee colony is a great example of a perfect democratic society comparable to our modern society. A honey bee colony helps us to learn
- How to survive.
- How to defend against the enemy.
- How to work together without any quarrel.
- How to strongly handle the worst situations.
There are countless life lessons that a human can get from a honey bee colony.
10) Full-Time Income Source
There are over 100 million commercial beehives found all over the world. The main aim of commercial beekeepers is to make a decent amount of money through beekeeping.
Beekeepers can make money from plenty of sources by beekeeping. Selling honey, bee pollen, wax, royal jelly, and other bee products. Beekeepers also can make money by providing pollination services.
There are plenty of ways to make money from beekeeping. Beekeeping has become an excellent full-time income source. A Commercial beekeeper with the proper plan can generate a profit of more than 1000$ per month.
11) Helping To Keep Ecological Balance
Bees are helping to keep balance in our ecosystem. They are eating harmful insects for humans. They also provide food sources to other predators.
Bees are responsible for keeping biodiversity all over the world. They are natural cleaner that removes dust and rotten fruits.
So, if you are keeping bees you are directly helping to keep the ecological balance of the world. You are helping to keep biodiversity in your region.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do bees teach us about life?
Bees teach us how to build a healthy and stronger society. How to fight against odds. How to keep unity among all the people in a society, and so on.
What are the advantages of beekeeping?
Beekeeping helps to keep an overall balance in the world's ecosystem. A beekeeper is mentally stronger than other people. Beekeeping also provides a helpful income to make a better living.
Is bee hive good for skin?
Honey, wax, and pollen collected from a beehive are used to produce skin care products. Because bee products contain anti-oxidants and so many helpful elements for good skin. So, undoubtedly elements of beehives are really good for the skin.
Final Words & Helpful Resources
Hopefully, you learned the major benefits of beekeeping. But these are not the only benefits of keeping bees. The benefits of beekeeping are countless.
Don’t think much about the benefits start keeping bees to enhance the overall health of the world. Beekeeping will bless you in plenty of ways.
Want to dive into beekeeping? Check the article to know where to learn beekeeping.
Following are the resources that might be helpful for you.
- If you want to know how many hives to get started in beekeeping you can check this.
- Click here to get a basic beekeeping cost estimation.
- N. Barlović, J. Kezić, N. Osmanagić Bedenik, and Z. Grgić, “Economic efficiency of beekeeping in Croatia.” Read the paper here.
- P. Makri, P. Papanagiotou, and E. Papanagiotou, “Efficiency and economic analysis of Greek beekeeping farms.” To read the research paper click here.
- J. Stanhope, S. Carver, and P. Weinstein, “Health outcomes of beekeeping: A systematic review.” Read the research paper here.
