How Bees Became a Must-Have in the Backyards of the Rich and Famous

How Bees Became a Must-Have in the Backyards of the Rich and Famous

Perhaps you watched David Beckham tend to his beehives in 2023’s Beckham Netflix docuseries. Maybe you’ve scrolled past Jennifer Garner harvesting honey. Regardless of the particular figure you may have encountered, beekeeping has become increasingly popular among the rich and famous in the past decade. Yolanda Hadid is into it. Ed Sheeran gave it a try, according to the tabloids, and the bees live in harmony with mini horses and chickens on Jared Padalecki’s property. Even the notoriously private Queen B herself, Beyoncé, has shared that she has “around 80,000 bees” at home. But how did such a peculiar activity become a pastime for so many?

Hive beekeeping has been in practice by humans for thousands of years, according to Bee Wilson’s The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us, yet for a lot of these years, beekeeping has been an activity for the notably reserved, like medieval monks and nuns who depended on bees for honey and to make mead. Per The Hive, the origins of the modern approach to beekeeping began in the 19th century, when wealthy pockets of Britain and America were enjoying a new novelty: leisure time. Guide books and beekeepers associations sprung up as beekeeping was embraced as a way to fill that free time. The known famous people who took up beekeeping between then and now are few, but poet Sylvia Plath and writer Leo Tolstoy are known to have tended to bees.

“As factories belched out smoke, and sugar consumption proliferated, the beekeeper began to seem a folksy, reassuring kind of figure, a link with the old ways, rugged and self-sufficient,” Wilson writes of this period in the 19th century when beekeeping first took off for hobbyists. The joy in connecting with something “real” in the midst of the industrial revolution back then is aligned with our current period’s reaction to the digital era with homesteader culture.

A beekeeper in England lifts honey from a beehive shaped like a house, circa 1935.

 Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images

Unsurprisingly, for many of the celebrities who are beekeepers now, their hives are just one piece of the rural lifestyles they’ve embraced. For instance, Joanna Gaines, who’s sold the charms of farm living to countless Americans, now keeps bees in addition to the horses, chickens, and other animals on her 40-acre family farm near Waco, Texas. “It’s definitely a more real way to live, and so I’m thankful for that,” Joanna told People regarding her new hobbies of beekeeping and horseback riding. Similarly, Nicole Richie is passionate about both her chickens and bees.

Erika Thompson, better known as the Bee Lady on social media, has witnessed this shift up close in both celebrities and the general public. Thompson first picked up beekeeping in 2011, and what began as a hobby became a full-time job in bee control and pest removal. Nine years later, she began documenting her beekeeping on TikTok, amassing 11 million followers to date. “Beekeeping is meditative for me; I become mindful and focused, entering a flow state where I’m completely absorbed in the hive and aware of every movement I make,” Thompson tells AD. “I truly believe that beekeeping is a hobby that brings a profound sense of peace and purpose.” In these turbulent times, the relaxing element of beekeeping certainly makes the hobby more attractive.

The Maltese honeybee, which has been declared the official national insect of Malta.

 Photo: Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

Thompson has had the chance to speak with a number of celebrities about beekeeping—including her personal hero Jane Goodall; Angelina Jolie, who is part of UNESCO and Guerlain’s “Women for Bees” program; Jason Derulo, whose house she’s removed a bee colony from; and Camila Alves McConaughey, who she helped with her own bees. “Camila was deeply concerned about the bees’ wellness and only wanted to harvest honey in a sustainable way,” Thompson says. “It was clear she had a profound respect for the bees and the vital work they do.” Thompson recommends that beginner beekeepers—nicknamed “newbees” affectionately—have assistance from an experienced beekeeper for the first year or two as they gain confidence with their hives.

Many new beekeepers have been compelled by the Save the Bees movement, which picked up steam toward the 2010s as fear over the declining bee population spread. Morgan Freeman is one celebrity who’s been vocal about this decline and shared that he has bees of his own now, too. “There is a concerted effort for bringing bees back onto the planet,” Freeman told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in 2019. “We do not realize that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, the vegetation.”

With this movement in the fore, getting into beekeeping isn’t only attractive as a fulfilling hobby, but also as a way to signal that you’re mindful about the environment. Unfortunately, much of this attention has focused squarely on honey-producing bees to the detriment of the thousands of other species, per the Times. Because of this, some conservationists and beekeepers are now concerned that there are too many honeybees buzzing around and overwhelming resources in some areas.

After all, the desire for “homemade” honey is another major reason to get into beekeeping. Just as the rise of beekeeping aligned with the industrial revolution, honey now aligns with our time’s obsession with organic, hyperlocal foods. “I think that for many beginner beekeepers the idea of having their own supply of fresh, local honey is often the biggest motivator,” Thompson explains. “Once people start keeping bees, they often realize that it’s about so much more than just honey. It’s about connecting with nature every time you go into a hive, and caring for creatures that do so much for our planet. ”