Beekeeping with Kids (Tips & Tricks)

1st Dec 2022

It was a warm Sunday afternoon, crossing over to hot and sweaty as the hours stretched. After church and lunch my sister was kind enough to sit with Mattie Kate while she napped, allowing Cassie and I to take Reid out to see the bees.

Reid is a typical 5 year old boy. He likes trucks, loud noises, anything fast, playing hard, and dislikes cleaning, paying attention, and being hot. He has accompanied me a few times to check the bees, and I’ve learned to keep it short and simple. His attention span runs out FAST.

This would be Cassie’s first time seeing the inside of a beehive, so I wanted both of them to have a good experience. I had a few loose goals in mind to achieve this.

Goal #1 – No Stings

A quality experience starts with it not being a BAD experience, so I put some thought (and money) into this goal. Reid had an affordable bee suit purchased from Amazon (https://amzn.to/3x7xWiC). Cost and protection are factors here, because he is just one or two growth spurts away from outgrowing the suit.

Cassie is done growing, so we invested some money into her suit. I have an Ultra Breeze full suit AND and jacket. I’ve been impressed with the venting ability of both in hot weather. In fact, in truly hot weather I wear the full suit with a workout shirt and gym shorts underneath. I’ve never been stung through either of those suits, so that is what I got Cassie – an Ultra Breeze Jumpsuit (https://www.ultrabreezesuits.com/shop/products/ultrabreeze-jumpsuit).

Part 2 of No Stings is picking on the right sized hive. Big hives are usually more defensive because they have more to defend, and more bees to defend with. Small hives and nucleus colonies are generally much more peaceable, so we took a look inside a couple of nucleus colonies.

Goal #2 – Keep it Short & Simple

Short attention spans require quick action. Reid wanted to see a queen bee, so we looked (and looked, and looked) and finally found one in the second nuc we dug into. During that process we found:

  • Comb being drawn
  • Worker Bees
  • Drones
  • Emergency Queen Cells
  • Bee Bread
  • Pollen
  • Nectar
  • Honey
  • Eggs
  • Larvae
  • Capped Brood
  • Emerging Brood

The great thing about nucleus colonies is you can see everything there is to see in a hive, and do it very quickly. This is a great fit for a 5 year old boy who loses attention quickly and gets hot, sweaty, and grumpy just about as fast.

All in all it was a great time with family, and the trip was a success.

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