Stephen Bishop
It used to be if you wanted to get into hobby beekeeping, first you planted a little garden, then you got chickens, then you started a blog, then you got bees. Tomatoes, chickens, blog, bees – that was the natural progression of the homesteader’s journey to beekeeping. But this is 2021, and, let’s face it, blogs are dead. I mean, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I still write a weekly blog post, and the last time I checked the statistics, the blog was getting about as much traffic as a dead-end road in the middle of the Sahara.
Today blogs have largely been replaced by other social media platforms, and none is more popular among beekeepers than YouTube, which is not surprising. If we’re being honest, most beekeepers are a little bonkers. In fact, the only people I know who wear white jackets and talk to themselves are beekeepers and the certifiably insane. Sometimes while I’m working hives, people will sneak up on me while I’m conversing with myself. It’s pretty easy to do because usually I’m in the beekeeping zone, focused on the inner workings of the hives, and thus I lose awareness of things in my immediate vicinity, like the location of my hive tool, the dwindling fire in my smoker, and the neighbor who just snuck up and listened to me mutter to myself for minutes before finally asking if I have any honey for sale. It’s a little embarrassing, but I guess it’s only fitting–add a few straps here and there and our modern beekeeping garbs would bear a striking resemblance to the early 1900s fashion trends at the looney bin.
Anyway, the point here is that it’s not a big leap to go from talking to yourself to talking to a camera. Enter YouTube.
Nearly all the YouTube channels I follow are beekeeping-related. There’s a couple of Star Wars channels and sports channels thrown in, but my video history is heavily dominated by people jabbering to their cell phones or GoPros about Apis mellifera. So in an effort to share my YouTube addiction with others, here are some of my favorite beekeeping YouTubers:
Ian Steppler (A Canadian Beekeeper’s Blog): Ian lives in Canada, but don’t hold that against him. His videos provide great insight into the hard work it takes to be a full-time professional beekeeper. He may have an Ezyloader, but commercial beekeeping isn’t easy, and his videos prove it.
Kaylee Richardson (The Honeystead): Kaylee is an up-and-coming beekeeper, and bees are a major part of her small-scale homestead operation. If you’re wanting to get into homesteading, her videos would be a great place to start.
Bob Binnie (Bob Binnie): Bob is the Mr. Rogers of beekeeping YouTubers – wisdom flows through his calm and soft-spoken voice. Bob is a full-time commercial beekeeper and owner of Blue Ridge Honey Company.
Kamon Reynolds (Tennessee’s Bees): Kamon is a commercial beekeeper in Tennessee. His videos are very informative, but I also appreciate the fact he’s willing to video himself doing stupid stuff, like standing on an empty bee box atop the roof of his car to catch a swarm in a tree overhead. It makes me feel good knowing I’m not the only who does dumb things.
Richard Noel (Richard Noel): I know nothing about France except that it contains the Eiffel Tower and Richard Noel. Richard is a French beekeeper who is documenting his leap to full-time commercial beekeeping. Thankfully, he speaks English, so I didn’t have to subscribe to Rosetta Stone to follow him.
Mr. Ed (Jeff Horchoff Bees): Mr. Ed is the beekeeper for a Benedictine monastery in Louisiana. He is quite possibly the world’s most positive and happy person, even when he’s extracting mean bees from walls. He is a master of cut-outs and removals.
The Dirt Rooster (628DirtRooster Bees): Another master of the cut-out is the Dirt Rooster. Occasionally, the Dirt Rooster and Mr. Ed will team up for a cut-out and appear in each other’s videos, at which point it’s like watching a major superhero crossover movie. YouTubers, assemble!
I could go on and on – if someone talks about bees on YouTube, I probably follow them. And I hate to leave anybody out, but, as the humor writer, I have a very limited word count (if I go too long, Jerry’s inbox overflows with complaints that Bee Culture prints too much fluff).
Thus, I’ll end there. But, as an expert YouTube watcher, my advice to anyone who wants to start
a beekeeping YouTube channel is pretty simple: just hold the camera still and jabber – you’ll have at least one follower.
You can see more of Stephen Bishop’s work at misfitfarmer.com – his blog where he posts his deepest and darkest secrets because no one reads it, not even his wife.
