🌾Agriculture
Beekeeper
Keeps bees and produces honey
Tends bee colonies, monitors their health, and harvests honey, wax and other beekeeping products.
What they do
- ▹Tends bee colonies throughout the season
- ▹Monitors bee health and prevents disease and swarming
- ▹Arranges moving hives to good nectar-flow locations
- ▹Harvests, processes and prepares honey and other products for sale
Skills you need
- ▹Knowledge of bee biology and behaviour
- ▹Calm, careful handling of hives
- ▹Observing a colony's condition
- ▹Willingness to travel seasonally for nectar flows
- ▹Basic business skills for selling the product
Focus on these subjects at school
Biology
Where they work
- ▹A private apiary
- ▹Beekeeping farms and cooperatives
- ▹Beekeeping research stations
- ▹Farmers' markets and beekeeping-product processing
Pros
- + Can be run as a small operation of one's own
- + Growing interest in natural products raises demand for honey
Challenges
- − Strongly seasonal work, tied to when plants flower
- − Risk of stings and the constant need to monitor colony health
Programs that lead to this profession
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