Beekeeping

Keeping honey bee colonies at home, at hobbyist scale, for honey, wax, pollination of a home garden and simple interest in the insects rather than as a commercial operation. Hobby beekeepers maintain one or a few hives in specialized boxes, inspect them through the season for colony health and honey stores, and often join local beekeeping associations that share equipment, mentorship and swarm-collection help. It sits alongside gardening as one of the more common home practices that keeps a living creature as its central subject rather than a plant or a made object.