beekeeper
Americannoun
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beekeepers
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of beekeeper
Explanation
A beekeeper is someone who manages bee hives and extracts honey. If you see a person wearing a white jumpsuit and a hat with a veil — and they're covered in buzzing insects — it's probably a beekeeper. If you want to get really fancy, you can call a beekeeper an apiarist. Beekeepers manage apiaries, or networks of honey bee hives. They care for the hives, making sure they are an ideal environment for the bees to live and make honey. It's also the beekeeper's job to carefully extract honeycomb without harming the bees. Many people keep bees as a hobby, yielding just a little bit of honey each year.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Funkhouser, a veteran commercial beekeeper, should have around 1,200 hives under his care.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
There are even bees and a beekeeper, who harvests honey for employees to take home.
From Barron's ● Nov. 15, 2025
Teddy, a hobbyist beekeeper, opens the film alarmed that now the bees have disappeared, too.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2025
The locals say Agnes is the “child of a forest witch” and she is indeed extraordinary: an able herbalist, beekeeper and falconer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2025
A writer, an English teacher, and a beekeeper.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Brandon Teller, one of the county’s most prominent beekeepers, saw a Watch Duty fire notification on May 19 and headed straight to his apiary.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
Lamas and his colleagues then formulate advice to share with beekeepers around the nation.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
The harms from faked honey are mostly to the livelihoods of beekeepers.
From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026
For years, beekeepers have noted increasing issues with queen failure and early supersedure.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 22, 2025
So widespread and heavy was the loss that 14 other beekeepers joined him in suing the state for a quarter of a million dollars in damages.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
