Beekeeper
🐝Runs an apiary: inspects hives, rears queens, treats bees for disease, extracts honey, moves colonies to pollinate fields and orchards and sells the produce.
Prospects & pay
What the work is like
💼 Job market
🇺🇸 $71.6k a year on average · -3.4% jobs by 2035 · 70,800 openings a year
Farmers, ranchers, & other agricultural managers — US: Census ACS 2020–24 (full-time), BLS projections 2025–35
🇬🇧 £30.1k median a year · 13,000 jobs
Agricultural and fishing trades n.e.c. — UK: ONS ASHE 2025 (full-time)
🤖 AI & automation
Smart hives with sensors flag where the problem is, but inspections, handling swarms and caring for the bees stay with the beekeeper.
Who it suits
Interests: 🐾 Animals, 🏕️ Outdoor work, expeditions, 🔧 Making things by hand, 🧬 Biology.
Key strengths: strength and stamina, manual dexterity, organisation.
Where to study
- Course BBKA Basic Assessment and modules (UK), beekeeping association courses
- Apprenticeship Bee Farmers' Association apprenticeship (UK), Tierwirt Bienenhaltung Ausbildung (DE)
- Vocational College courses in apiculture
Key school subjects (A-level / IB / AP): Biology, Business.
🧗 Beekeeping association courses (BBKA in the UK) and work on an apiary; the UK Bee Farmers' Association runs apprenticeships, Germany has an Ausbildung. Pollination contracts add income.
Things to know
🏔️ Long stints far from home⚠️ Real danger to life
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