Background to Beekeeping: Start with Why!

Take this course as one of your first courses in beekeeping and it will set you on the right path in beekeeping for years to come.  Beekeeping has very many benefits/potential benefits.  Established beekeepers may not even be aware of all the benefits they, their family and community are getting from their beekeeping hobby or enterprise.  This course will give you an excellent overview of the history and current state of bees and beekeeping around the world, the honey trade, why you should get into beekeeping, how you can benefit personally from beekeeping and how your local community and the planet will thank you as well.  The course will give you the WHY of beekeeping which is essential before you get lost in the detail of the HOW.

Remember reasons always come first and once you understand why you should start beekeeping you will always figure out the how.  Having a thorough understanding of the  WHY of beekeeping is absolutely essential to your success as a beekeeper.  The course ends by giving you a key step on the road to learning the HOW of beekeeping appropriate to where you live in the world.

The course will also help you to decide how you want to approach beekeeping in your particular context and how you might bring your own unique skills and interests to beekeeping to make it your very own.  This big picture view of beekeeping is really important because it is so easy to get lost in detail which might or might not be appropriate to where you live (just try searching for beekeeping videos on YouTube and you will find so many videos it is hard to know which ones are useful or appropriate!).

In developing this course I draw on a lifetime of beekeeping experience in Ireland and in Africa.

In addition to other resources and links included with the course there are two free downloadable beekeeping books (PDF format) written by the course creator for your further reference.

The course has been revised and updated for 2021/2022.

Instructors

Dr. Thomas Carroll – Project Manager, Educator, Researcher, Author