Beekeeping and Children

Children can now start beekeeping in 4-H officially at age 5. 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

Our project meetings are at Peterson's Farm on the third Tues. each month from September to May at 6:30. You need to join a 4-H club to be a member of this project. It does not have to be the Liberty 4-H Club because you can "cross club".

Call Ettamarie at 707-765-4582

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, learn how to build the boxes and wire the frames, make products from the beeswax and honey, evaluate brood comb for signs of diseases, hive colonies of bees and many other things throughout the year. Some of the 4-H children order bees and some rely on the leaders' swarm catching skills. Learning to care for their colonies is an on going lesson next.

Children Can Learn to Be Calm Around Bees

	These children are checking to see if it is time to add another brood box to their hive.		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.
	The Liberty 4-H beekeepers here in Petaluma, California were asked to give a demonstration at the Heirloom Festival in Santa Rosa in the fall of 2011. They did a mock opening of the hive and did a great job explaining basic beekeeping.		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

Home	Bee Facts	Activities	Record Keeping	Honey Harvest	More Sites	Crafts	Queen Rearing	Observation Hives	Recipes	Wax Moths	Rescuing a Colony	Top Bar Hives	Save the Bees

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 for many years and then getting the site over to its new host.
Some photos are taken by the 4-H children themselves as part of this project or the photography project.
Last updated November 24, 2018

Webpage assistance provided by James Carey