A beekeeper removes a frame from a box beehive at the Michigan State University Tollgate Farm and Education Center.

Photo by Brian Louwers

METRO DETROIT — Despite how it may look in videos and pictures, beekeeping is no simple task.

What appears at first to be pulling racks out of boxes while wearing bulky clothes belies a complex field of animal husbandry where climates are watched, pesticides are precautioned and the wrong move may see a whole hive die off.

“There’s a fad that’s been going on (called) ‘garden hives,’” said Randy List, an instructor of classes with the Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers Association. “They put the box with hive stands in their garden and put some bees in there, and they do nothing to them and bees die and next year they put more in there. That’s not what

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