Beekeeping and Children

Children can start beekeeping in 4-H officially at age 9. The most important thing to remember is safety. Be sure the children are properly suited up anytime they are working directly with bees. Also caution children to handle dead bees carefully. It sounds strange but a dead bee can "sting." This actually happened to one of our young beekeepers much to his surprise. It is best to have liquid antihistamines at hand just in case of a sting. Be aware of what signs of shock to look for and treat every sting seriously. Vomiting, having to go to the toilet quickly, tingly feelings or fainting are all signs that emergency medical help needs to be called immediately. Now that the scary issues have been addressed, let's think about what children can do with bees.

Learn more about 4-H and all its wonderful opportunities:
Check out the California Youth Development 4-H web site at U.C. Davis.
To order 4-H publications and make more inquiries phone (800)994-8849
Please see the 4-H UC ANR disclaimer link and
for information on National 4-H programs
and see Sonoma County's 4-H web site

These Liberty 4-H children with a little brother are practicing the skills they learned all year.

Provide the children with simple, easy to read literature to begin with. They will need to know what honey bees live in the colony, what the life cycles of the queen, the workers and the drone are. They will need to know the parts and functions of the bees and also the hive they live in. A good beginning project is building a bee hive. The parts can be ordered from several bee supply stores on line or locate a near by store that carries them. The Liberty 4-H beekeeper group in Sonoma County, California, learned how to build the boxes and wire the frames in their first two meetings. Some of the 4-H children ordered bees and some relied on the leaders' swarm catching skills. Learning the difference between caring for the two different colonies was their next lesson.

Children Can Learn to Be Calm Around Bees

	This child is learning that bees can land on you with no interest in stinging you. The hive beneath her hand has a Plexiglas top so the bees below cannot sting her. The photo was taken in Sweden by Ron van Mierlo.		This spring Griffin's hive decided to swarm up into a near by oak. This was his first swarm catch. He is holding the cardboard box to catch the falling bees. Usually the bees will stay in a large clump as they fall into the box. Many of these bees did but others flew around and landed back on the tree so we had to do it a few times and then finish by cutting off the branch to get the last ones.
	This is Kaitlyn, a Liberty 4-H beekeeper here in Petaluma, California. Her beautiful smile shows her confidence in her veil and gloves.		After they landed in the box, we looked to see if we could spot the queen. Note the bees on Griffin's suit. They did not disturb him at all!
	Maggie , another Liberty 4-H beekeeper, is gaining confidence by using a frame lifter to pull up a frame for the first inspection of her hive. Note that the leader is not wearing gloves to let the children see that all it takes is a calm attitude around the bees to be safe. That is, of course, if you are working with calm bees.		The next step was dumping the swarm in the nucleus box Griffin had made as one of his first bee projects. He was happy he had it ready!
	We teach the children to find the queen by looking for her in a circle of her daughters. This is called "her court" and it is a common sight on the combs. The daughters care for her by feeding and grooming her. They also give her drinks of water. The queen is a pampered mother!		Griffin proudly watched as the last bees marched in. This gave him confidence he had the queen. His swarm catch meant everyone of the Liberty 4-H beekeepers could now say he or she had captured a swarm!
	Griffin's first job was to learn to use the smoker. He is smoking the bees in a smaller hive to be able to move them into his new big hive. Being properly suited up gave him all the confidence that he needed to do a good job.		After his swarm catching, Griffin inspected the original hive. Note that now he is not wearing his gloves! He is feeling much more at ease with his bees. These swarm photos were taken by his brother Jimmy and entered in the 2005 fairs winning blue ribbons.
	At the February 2006 4-H meeting Griffin made a presentation on swarm catching. He used the photos his brother took and told the other children the steps to catching and hiving a swarm.		In early February 2006 Jessie checked her hive and decided she needed to add her honey super to give the colony room to prevent swarming.

Learn More

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For more information about starting a 4-H Beekeeping project e-mail Ettamarie.

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This web site was designed and is maintained by Ettamarie Peterson, 4-H leader,
to help the Liberty 4-H beekeepers' project and encourage young people to become beekeepers.
It is dedicated to the 4-H children of Liberty 4-H Club in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California.
We hope a lot of other young beekeepers and adult beginners learn from it.
The site is sponsored by Peterson's Farm.
Our thanks go to Sean Straw, another beekeeper, for hosting the site for us.
Some photos are taken by the 4-H children themselves as part of this project or the photography project.
Last updated Oct. 12 , 2007.