The hard part about keeping honeybees is keeping honeybee colonies ALIVE. How do you do it?

Local bees are a key to sustainability in my opinion. If you decide to keep bees, you'll likely be tempted to buy what's called a "package" of bees. If you want to see how these things get thrown together, just do a YouTube search and I'm sure that you'll find something. But essentially, about 3 pounds of bees get tossed together whether they belong to the same colony or not. They are shoved into a small wire mesh box that has handles.

Three Pound Bee Package

Then a caged queen is dropped into the package, she is in her own little box, but it has a screen cover so that the workers can feed her. The queen has no direct contact with the workers. A can of feeder syrup is added and then they move onto the next. If you live in the US, a likely source of your bees are in California or somewhere in the southern States where it is warm most of the year.

Locally raised queen bee and her court

The demand for packages is largest in early Spring. At that time around here where I live, my colonies are just getting started. These early Spring colonies are not in a position to help start another colony. So, what most people do is go and buy a package of bees because it's easy.

What do bees from California know about surviving in Maine or the high plains desert of Colorado? Not much in my opinion. If you want to keep bees and give them a solid chance of survival, then you need to get bees and queen bees from someone local to where you are. They may cost a little extra, but they are worth it. Just make sure that the queen has survived a winter or is at least progeny from a winter surviving queen.

Nice little swarm of bees, ready for the taking...easy peasy!

Another way to get local bees is to capture a swarm of bees. When colony swarms, about 60% of the worker population and the queen leave the other 40% behind in search of a new home. Many times, these colonies are healthy and winter survivors. Swarm catching is also a lot of fun. It sounds intimidating, but it can be easy and very rewarding. Plus you rescue the neighborhood and you're the hero!

Have fun, it's beekeeping!