How to become a professional beekeeper
Are you struggling to become a beekeeper? Do you want to turn your passion for bees into a successful business? In the last decade, beekeeping has become a highly revalued activity, especially due to an increasingly high market demand for honey and high quality bee products.
Among the professional activities that are based on the contact between man and nature, beekeeping stands out clearly. It can be defined as a real art that aims at the quality of products and protects biodiversity: beekeeping, in fact, unlike other crafts and despite the help that comes from countless technological innovations, remains linked to techniques and procedures traditional that have been handed down unchanged for decades.
The professional beekeeper, therefore, is the one who carries out his work with great passion but with the same commitment: the satisfactions, from season to season, will be economic but also personal, because they will transform the professional into an active protagonist of a microcosm, that of bees, which is really fascinating.
Who is the beekeeper
Unlike other professions, where it is enough to practice a little to be successful, the beekeeper's profession cannot be improvised. In fact, bees are delicate insects with a complex biology: altering the vital parameters of these insects means harming them, even fatally, and thwarting all the efforts of one's work.
A beekeeper is the one who raises swarms of bees and to do so creates the most favorable conditions for the development of a strong and vigorous hive: the result of his work will be the collection of honey, propolis, beeswax, royal jelly and pollen .
The first steps to become a beekeeper
The first thing to do to become a professional beekeeper is to associate with a theoretical-practical bear intended for future beekeepers. The objectives of this type of course are to teach everything there is to know about beekeeping. The most effective and complete courses have costs that are around € 150. Usually, these courses include a theoretical part, thanks to which you learn:
- The life cycle of bees
- The importance of the bee hierarchy
- The most common diseases of bees
- Problems that can occur in bee farming
- The best plants to obtain a quality honey
With this basic knowledge and experience gained in the field, he will make every neo - beekeeper a true professional.
To start a professional beekeeping business, it is then essential to meet the bureaucratic expenses. It is therefore necessary:
- Open a VAT number
- Register with the Business Register
The importance of choosing the right soil for planting apiaries
When you have all the necessary skills to start your farm you must choose the land that will host your apiaries.
The land will have to meet certain criteria. It must:
- Being surrounded by trees and flowers, so that the bees can find the right nourishment;
- Be sunny but also have shaded areas, to avoid an overload of work for the bees;
- Being in a place away from people and roads in compliance with Article 896 bis of the Civil Code. Specifically, it must be at least 5 meters from the property boundaries and 10 meters from public roads.
Finally, the soil should be slightly damp and not very windy.
All the beekeeping material needed to be a beekeeper
If the choice of land is important for starting the beekeeper business, so is the purchase of hives, feeders, smokers and work clothing.
In principle, you can start with the purchase of 3 hives, the cost of which is around € 200.
For the purchase of the purchase of:
- Tracksuits;
- Smoker;
- Masks;
- Leather gloves;
The total cost for these tools is a few hundred euros.
In addition to these tools, there is also the cost of the essential equipment for processing honey in the laboratory, such as dispersers and benches for dispersing, the centrifuge, the ripener, the amber-maker, the waxer and all the equipment necessary for packaging.
Where to buy beekeeping equipment for your farm
All the equipment to start your beekeeping business can be purchased at the Quarti company. Quarti has been a point of reference in the beekeeping sector, for more than 30 years: at the company, or its online shop, it is possible to find a very wide catalog of products, ranging from clothing for beekeepers to smokers, from hives to '' equipment necessary for the extraction of honey, up to the ripeners, feeders, dosers, mixers and kettles. All Quarters items stand out for their quality, rigorously Made in Italy.
Where to buy queen bees, swarms, families and bee packs
Apicoltura Laterza can become your preferred point of contact for the purchase of Buckfast and ligustic queen bees, as well as packs of bees, swarms and bee families. We have been bee producers for more than 35 years: our specimens are selected and stand out for their productivity, docility and strength.
You can buy our bee cores in the months of March, May and October. In addition to the sale of bees, it is possible to purchase both wholesale and retail seeds of the highest quality buckwheat, Facelia-Phacelia Tanacetifolia de Coriander at Apicoltura Laterza.
