A beekeeper is someone who raises and cares for honeybees, usually in wooden boxes called hives. Beekeepers wear special protective suits with veiled hats because bees will sting to defend their home. They use a smoker, a device that puffs cool smoke, to calm the bees before opening a hive to check on them or collect honey.

Beekeeping requires knowledge and patience. A beekeeper must understand the bee colony's lifecycle, recognize when the queen bee is healthy, watch for diseases, and make sure the bees have enough flowers nearby to gather nectar and pollen. In spring and summer, a strong hive might contain 60,000 bees working together.

Some beekeepers manage just a hive or two in their backyard as a hobby. Others run large operations with hundreds of hives, producing honey to sell or moving their hives to farms where bees pollinate crops like almonds, apples, and blueberries.