No one knows for sure when and how Bee keeping started. But its past goes back to the ancient times when man lived in the caves and forests. This has been verified by Archealogists who have found some caves paintings in eastern Spain and Africa. In the paintings some images of man scooping out honey from the bee hives in trees and between cracks in the rocks has been clearly shown. Some say that bee keeping which is one of the oldest forms of food production dates back to 13,000 BC when farming first started. Later in ancient Egypt, bee keeping was an important profession. It was in ancient Egypt where the concept of the present day bee keeping or farming as you may call it, first started. In the United States of America, bee keeping was first brought in the 19th Century in Pennsylvania by John Harbison. Since ancient times bee keeping has been practised for harvesting of honey. Some of the by products of honey are Royal Jelly and Propolis which are used for medicinal purposes especially in some of the traditional forms of medicines. There has been little change of the products of beehives since the ancient times.

Till 1980's, bee keeping was taken up as a hobby. Later on bee keeping was taken up in the right earnest by some farmers to make a living out of it. It was during this period that many different varieties of bees were brought over from far off places of Europe and New Zealand. Many different kinds of bees were brought over from places in Europe and even as far as New Zealand.In some rural areas, bee farming is a tradition for some bee keepers passed down to them from generation to generation.

In Asia, bee keeping is done especially to produce honey and beeswax which was earlier used to make candles in some Asian countries before the advent of electricity. It was in 1851 when an American Scientist named L.L. Langstroth first innovated the modern scientific procedure of bee farming by making the removable hive frame and bee space. By 1857 it was discovered that bees could be urged to build a straight hive frame by providing some wax for making a foundation. it was found out that bees would start to use the wax foundation to build a honeycomb, which are actually octagon shaped holes that the bees used to store their larvae and later honey once the larvae developed into bees.Since then different techniques were developed. By 1857 it was discovered the Asian culture beekeeping was done to produce honey and beeswax (which was used in candle making and other products), but when an American scientist named L.L. Langstroth took beekeeping to the scientific level in 1851 had innovated the bee space and the removable hive frame. It wasn't until 1857 that it was discovered that bees could be manipulated into building a straight frame hive by providing them with some wax for a foundation. Bees would proceed to use the wax foundation to build a honeycomb the octagon shaped holes that was used to store larvae and later honey once the bees had developed and hatched. Over the next few years different techniques had been developed and bee keeping slowly tood the modernized version. It was in 1873 the Smoker was invented. It is one of the most practical safety device used by beekeepers. Beekeeping is actually an art which you have to learn from the initial stages and master yourself to become a skilled beekeeper. It takes a lot of time, patience and practice to become a beekeeper which you could take up into a profession for making a living.

Beekeeping is just a offshoot of farming because it involves plants, trees, flowers and everything else used in agriculture and farming. Beekeepers are called as 'Apiculturists' in the true sense and a category has been laid down for them by the Department of Agriculture. There are some beekeepers who had first started beekeeping as a hobby, but later transformed it into a full time profitable occupation. Those beekeepers who have a fair knowledge of biology and entomology can become an asset to the beekeeping market because they can constantly endeavour to improve and innovate the system of beekeeping into a more modern method with new improved systems and technology.

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Setting up your own beekeeping business may sound very exiciting and leisurely pastime to you but in reality it is just the opposite. Beekeeping involves lot of hard work and giving much time to it. Most persons who have started beekeeping are just doing it as a hobby and they are satisfied with one or two hives. But beekeeping as a business and means of livlihood means hard work as well as investing some money as well. In other words, beekeeping is just like farming where you have to try to always stay on the top of the market and adapt yourself to the latest technological developments. You success in beekeeping is just like farming where your success depends of how fast you can produce your products and send it to the market before the other competitors.

To succeed in beekeeping business means that you should be around for quite a pretty long time. This will enable you to study the market trends and the expectations of the buyers and act accordingly. Beekeeping is also just like having a business in the internet where you need to have a website because no internet business can succeed without a website of its own.

Most of the producers of honey are large commercial companies because a small time beekeeper just cannot mass produce honey at the scale the large companies do. Also there is stiff competition from other small scale beekeepers. This means that you may be out of business within a short time if you don't equip yourself with the technological developments in this area, invest more money and try your utmost to push up production. You must also bear in mind that in beekeeping business you are all by yourself because the beekeeping industry doesn't function on cooperative basis as some organic farmers are doing these days. Some beekeepers are just sub contractors of the larger firms where they produce the sell the honey with the labels of these firms and use their marketing channels to sell their honey.

You might be thinking that sub contracting is a good idea but you must know that in sub contracting also you have to compete for the contracts with other beekeepers and there is always the risk of losing the cotract. There also always the possibility that the companies who hire you on sub contract basis may not feel happy with your work or the quality of your production and cancel the contract with you without any warning. Thus we may assume that beekeeping as a ful time profession is somewhat a risky business because you never really get to know how stable the market will be in any given season and how much production of honey you can anticipate during the season.

The season and good weather also plays an important role in the success of a beekeeper. If the weather is good for a long time you can expect good production of honey which may consequently increase your profit after meeting all the costs of production and marketing. But it is the weather which is main concern of all beekeepers. You cannot predict good weather with certainity and this is what all beekeepers worry about. Also in beekeeping business you have to wholly depend on the bees and how they produce the honey. Bees produce honey during certain climates and temperatures. Beekeepers almost have to base their financial gain through good weather and season with the market demand, but you can't always predict good weather, which is what many worry about. They have more to worry about than crop farmers since they can make the difference when they get rain and lower climate suitable to the food they're growing. Beekeeping is dependent on the activity of the bees and how well they produce honey since bees produce in certain climates and temperatures.Therefore if you really want to succeed in this business then be prepared for a lot of hard work, investment of time, money and patience because all these things will go a long way in making your beekeeping business a success....Read more about beekeeping