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Beekeeper
Outdoor & AdventureYou raise bees, harvest honey, and manage colonies of 50,000 stinging insects that are somehow both essential to global food production and terrifying to everyone at your dinner parties. You'll inspect hives, treat diseases, and get stung regularly — which you eventually stop noticing because your body just gives up on having a reaction.
Salary Range
Low
$25k
Median
$40k
High
$65k
10-Year Growth
faster than average
US Workers
12K
Education
No formal requirement — mentorship, workshops, and a lot of reading (and stings)
Environment
outdoor
Tools & Technical Skills
- ▸Hive inspection and colony health assessment
- ▸Queen rearing and requeening techniques
- ▸Varroa mite treatment (oxalic acid, formic acid, Apivar)
- ▸Honey extraction and processing equipment
- ▸Pollination service management
- ▸Seasonal hive management (winter prep, spring splits)
People & Mindset Skills
- ▸Patience and calm demeanor around bees
- ▸Observation skills
- ▸Record-keeping discipline
- ▸Self-reliance
- ▸Business marketing (direct-to-consumer sales)
Learn the skills
Courses and certifications to get you job-ready
Varroa mite treatment (oxalic acid, formic acid, Apivar)
Pollination service management
What you'll actually do
- 01Inspect hives and check for diseases, parasites, and whether the queen is alive and laying
- 02Get stung and react with the casual indifference of someone who's been stung 5,000 times
- 03Harvest honey without getting swarmed — a skill that takes years and a good smoker
- 04Manage colony health through mite treatments, feeding, and winter preparation
- 05Transport hives to farms for pollination contracts — bees on a flatbed truck at 5 AM
- 06Explain to everyone at barbecues why bees are essential and no, they're not the same as wasps
Related Shifts
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