RHS senior Shane Jenkins has taken over his father’s hobby of beekeeping and has found a passion for taking care of bees for about 3 years now.

“My father was a beekeeper for about 4 years. He owned quite a number of apiaries, so he had a couple of beehives at our house, a couple at other people’s houses, and friends ‘ houses. He really had an interest in this hobby; however, when the bees flew away, he lost interest, and he didn’t have the time. But he had all the supplies left over, and I took it over because I learned from him.” Jenkins said.

Jenkins’s hobby involves many obstacles that he must occasionally overcome to keep the bees thriving. 

“The biggest challenge about keeping bees is that they always want to leave you, so the biggest challenge is trying to make a desirable environment for the bees to want to stay with me, in the hive that I give them, and produce me honey. Another big problem is that there are a lot of parasites and diseases that bees can get, and I have to try to combat that, and be able to understand when they have it.”, Jenkins said.   

Jenkins is able to take bees’ lives from living in a box to providing a safe environment for them to build hives and expand their colony. 

“We get them by the thousands, and when we work with them, we accidentally kill a few every time we open a new box. It’s just the cost of opening it, going in there, fixing it, but there’s risks. It’s worth killing a few just to bring the hive up I’ve actually been able to raise enough bees from 3000 to about 20,000. Just by keeping them alive and nurturing them. That’s always important to remember.” Jenkins said.