Location

• The first thing to consider in being a beekeeper is hive placement. Although the average backyard is more than enough space to maintain one colony of bees, some factors must be taken into consideration. First is your family. Are they O.K. with bees being in your backyard? Are small children and pets going to be playing back there? You also need to take some consideration of your neighbors and check local zoning laws.
  If these make it impossible for you to keep a hive in your backyard, keep other locations in mind. Most community gardeners love to let beekeepers place their colonies near their farm. Its a free source of pollination for them and a free source of food for your bees.
  
  

Protection

• Protecting yourself is important. Even if you aren't allergic to bee stings, they are never pleasant and several can be dangerous, even to people who aren't allergic. Also, proper protection is important in helping you remain calm and comfortable which will help the bees stay calm and let you work.
  At bare minimum a hat with a screen veil is necessary. This keeps bees from getting caught up in your hair, but also prevents stings to the face, which can be much worse than stings in other places. It is also recommended that you wear gloves, as bees crawling all over your hands tends to be a bit distracting.
  Also, carry a smoker and keep it lit at all times. Smoke disrupts the bees' ability to communicate with each other and also sends them into hive preservation mode, which keeps them busy and working so you can work.
  
  

Hive Construction

• You can buy hives premade from beekeeper suppliers. The size and weight of these varies and the best way to decide which one to use is simply by how much weight you'll be willing to lift in the course of caring for the hive. Hives usually contain two to three boxes of slats that will eventually contain honey, and each of these boxes can contain 10 of these slats.
  Keep the hives up off the ground, which you can do with a simple shelf built from cinder blocks and a few weather-treated beams of wood.
  
  

Harvesting the Honey

• Honey is ready to be harvested when the bees have capped the individual slats with wax. As bees use honey as food to carry them through the winter, this typically starts to occur in the fall. When you're ready to harvest the honey, smoke the bees out of that respective hive and take the hive to wherever you will be extracting. Cut the wax off the combs and either let the honey drip into a container, or use one of the many extractor or spinning machines available.
  If you wish to be the nicest possible to your bees, harvest the honey in spring when you can be sure that all the honey left over is a surplus from the winter season.