Beekeeper Stories: Lessons learned and real-life experiences in backyard beekeeping

Oftentimes, the most important lessons you'll learn in beekeeping are from experience, whether it's your own, or those in another beekeeper's story.

Regardless of how many years you’ve been beekeeping, you likely already know that the learning truly never stops. Honeybees are such amazing creatures and not only teach us about ourselves, but the world around us, too.

Beekeepers are passionate people, and as such, they often really enjoy the learning aspect of their hobby. Learning about beekeeping can come from traditional places, like books and online beekeeping courses (such as our Academy syllabus), but the most important lessons are typically those learned through experience (whether that’s your experience or someone else’s).

We consider ourselves very fortunate to have such an amazing community of beekeepers through Colony, especially those who are willing to share what they’ve learned along their own journeys.

That’s why we’re so thrilled to keep adding to our awesome series: Beekeeper Stories!

Why Learning through Others Makes a Difference

When starting a beekeeping hobby, you realize pretty quickly just how much there is to learn, know, and do if you want to have healthy colonies and success in the bee yard. But as important as the lessons are that you may learn while taking online courses, reading a hard copy of a beekeeping book, or listening to lectures about honeybees, there’s nothing that can help you learn better than real-life experiences.

Many beekeepers learn the hard way, by making a silly mistake that they hadn’t thought about avoiding in the past or didn’t realize was important in the grand scheme of things. Those lessons learned can be the most impactful, especially the difficult ones that can’t be undone. Once you make a mistake like that, the lesson you learned along the way is likely to stick with you for the rest of your beekeeping hobby.

Instead of waiting to find something out the hard way yourself by getting it wrong the first time, our Beekeeper Stories give you the chance to learn through the experiences and knowledge built up by real beekeepers in our community.

So far in this series, we’ve enjoyed covering some truly amazing and inspiring beekeeping stories.

Learn a little bit more about each Beekeeper Story we’ve received so far below and read on to find out how you can share your beekeeping story!

Kelle: How becoming a beekeeper can turn into so much more.

Kelle’s passion for beekeeping began when she realized how much she loved learning about these fascinating creatures and their intricate lives.

With a story that focuses on the difficult challenges she’s faced and how hard it was to overcome them, Kelle’s resilience and openness are a true inspiration. Which is how she feels about her own bees, too, totally inspired by their resilience.

Kelle mentioned that her Beekeeper Story was highlighted at PerfectBee while at a beekeeping club meeting, and they were quite supportive. They’ll be linking to her story on their website, and she’s excited to tell them all about her Colony membership at their next meeting, too.

In her beekeeper story, Kelle shares with us some of her favorite beekeeping memories, interesting ways that her hobby and beekeeping tasks may differ from others, and the important ways that she has changed as a person since becoming a beekeeper.

Get inspired through Kelle’s beekeeping journey by reading through her story here, you’ll be glad you did!

Marta: Sometimes, beekeeping chooses you!

When we started writing brand new beekeeper stories for 2025, longtime PerfectBee collaborator Marta was one of the stories we were most excited about.

Marta’s expansive beekeeping knowledge and advice have helped us create some amazing content throughout the last year or so, and we couldn’t be more grateful to work with such a fun, friendly, and knowledgeable beekeeper.

In addition to talking about the years that Marta has spent learning all she can about beekeeping, her story covers how she ended up there, despite being initially scared of bees!

We look forward to working with Marta to create dynamic beekeeping resources for you all in the future and know that you’ll love reading her story as much as we did!

Nicole: Beekeeping. Not like keeping chickens!

Another PerfectBee team member, Nicole, started her beekeeping journey in a similar way to Marta’s. Though she wasn’t necessarily scared of bees at first, she quickly realized that she knew a LOT less about the complex world of honeybees than she initially thought.

Nicole joined the PerfectBee team in 2023 and since then, has been the main content writer of our beekeeping and honeybee content. Yes, she’s writing this particular post, now, too!

Nicole may not have always had an interest in bees or beekeeping, but once she developed one, she quickly realized that it would be a lifelong passion.

Once you’ve been stung by beekeeping, the learning truly never stops; no wonder it’s so addictive! Check out Nicole’s beekeeper story here and find out what she’s learned along the way.

John: The many ways to enjoy bees

John’s beekeeper story started in the way that many others do, with a colony of honeybees in need of rescuing! Where others may have called an exterminator or more experienced beekeeper, his personal motto of “fear nothing – conquer your dreams” made him realize that he could bee the one to turn into that more experienced beekeeper.

With a hobby and colonies that grew rapidly through the years, John eventually expanded his beekeeping interests, too. He now creates beautiful items from his hives’ by-products like candles, salves, propolis tinctures, lip balms, and of course, he finds the honey quite enjoyable, too.

Want to know more about his fascinating journey? Check out John’s full beekeeper story here!

Sandy: It started with a swarm.

Sandy’s beekeeper story may be one of our longest ones; it began over 40 years ago (with some breaks in between) and, like many others, her passion for bees was ignited by an encounter with a wild swarm of bees.

From working to teach kids about honeybees at a local school to creating a partnership with her husband, Sandy has had several very uncommon experiences, mishaps, and beekeeping goals throughout her beekeeping experience.

Want to know more about Sandy’s beekeeping journey? Check out her full beekeeper story here!

Through the various stories we’ve covered, we’ve realized just how much there is to learn from the experience of other beekeepers.

That’s why we can’t wait to cover more beekeeper stories, from beekeepers of every experience level… maybe you’ll be next!

Would you like to share your story? We’d love to hear from you.

Simply click here to learn more about the process and send a message to let us know you’d like to share your own unique beekeeper story.

Coming soon…

We love being able to share everything there is to know about interesting beekeepers and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Keep an eye on your inbox and stay excited for our next edition of Beekeeper Stories! We’ll share another beekeeper story, including all the adventures, tips, tricks, and lessons they’ve encountered along the way, very soon.