The Alameda County Beekeepers Association is the oldest beekeepers group in the state of the California.  Founded in 1916, our group meets regularly to provide beekeepers in the East Bay area a place to come together for education, networking and social activities around beekeeping and to educate the wider public about honeybees and the craft of beekeeping. 

We invite you to browse our Meetings, Activities and Swarm Call pages here, to join us in considering beekeeping yourself or, if you already are a beekeeper, to become a member of ACBA for our meetings, activities, online resources and networking.  

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

Annual dues for are $10.00 and, besides the benefits of networking, meetings and education, members are also entitled to rent our honey extracting equipment at a nominal cost, to be included on our swarm call list, if desired, and to receive discounts on various bee-related periodicals.  

To join ACBA, please send a check in the amount of $10.00, along with your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address to Alameda County Beekeepers Association, c/o Rotary Nature Center, 600 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, California, 94610.   If you have any questions about membership, feel free to contact Sara Willis, ACBA Treasurer at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

ABOUT BEEKEEPING

Beekeeping is an activity that dates back in human history for millennia, documented throughout the ancient Near East, and even today honeybees are crucial to our food supply, pollinating 60% of the foods we eat.  Though sometimes confused with other insects and misperceived as destructive or dangerous, the honeybee is really a gentle, productive and fascinating creature, which as many people now know, has in the past decade been mysteriously disappearing from around the world. 

Did you know:  

• honeybees are the only insect that produces a food for human consumption—honey. 
  
  
• honeybees never sleep, they are active 24/7 for the 7 to 8 weeks of their life cycle
  
  
• there are approximately 40,000 individual bees working together in a single standard beehive, all female except for 100 or so male drones
  
  
• honeybees are the only animal that has a representative language to communicate to other bees where nectar and pollen sources are located, and that they even have regional dialects
   
• because of its high sugar and low water content, honey can be used as an antiseptic and a preservative.  According to legend, the body of Alexander the Great was encased in honey after his death to preserve it for transport back to his native Greece for burial, and honey has been found in Egyptian tombs, still edible after 3,000 years.
   
• California’s most lucrative agricultural crop, almonds, which represents 80% of the world’s entire production and is the entire country’s most valuable horticultural export, is completely dependent upon honeybee pollination over a brief period each spring.