Managed Beehives for Your Property in the Cincinnati Area
Since 2010, The Best Bees Company has offered a unique, turnkey way for individuals and organizations to make a positive impact on the environment. The Best Bees Company is the leading beekeeping service in the greater Cincinnati area.
Our Mission
To expand the bee population while improving the health of honey bees in Ohio and across the world. Our locally certified beekeepers install and manage hives on your property and use the data we collect to drive the science of pollinator health forward with scientific partners that include Urban Bee Lab, NASA, MIT and National Geographic.
Beekeeping for Your Residential Backyard
If you'd like to save bees, build a healthier environment, pollinate your garden, and have your own honey harvest, then our residential service is perfect for you! We offer turnkey beekeeping, honey harvesting, and DNA analysis designed for homeowners in a wide range of environments. Regardless of the size of your property – whether you garden on a balcony, or have acres of land – we can set up and tend a hive (or several hives!) for you.
Expert Beekeeping
Hand-crafted, all natural equipment will be installed on your property. Ask us about custom-painted hives!
Colonies of docile honeybees will be introduced into your hive at the start of the season.
We can offer suggestions for pollinator-friendly trees, shrubs, and plants appropriate for your garden.
Our beekeepers will visit your hive for monthly maintenance visits.
You'll receive reports on the health of your hive after each beekeeper visit.
Full-time customer service team will be available to you by phone or email.
Honey Harvesting
When the bees produce surplus honey, we'll harvest, process, bottle, and deliver it for you.
If your bees need all the honey they've produced to get through the winter, we'll share surplus honey with you that we collect from hives at our partner apiaries.
Our residential beekeeping clients receive a Honey Guarantee of 5 pounds of honey per hive each year.
All honey from Best Bees is raw, unfiltered honey, delivered with custom honey labels with your name and the honey harvest date.
Data & Analysis On Your Hive
Our beekeepers will collect hive data upon each visit that will go into our proprietary hive health program 'Bzzz.'
This data is shared with our in-house scientific team who partner with other research institutions to study the data from your hive and our network of hives across the country.
As your hive data is studied and shared with partners, we will update you on scientific learnings and discoveries that are driving pollinator health forward.
For an additional fee, we can analyze the DNA analysis of your honey, reporting back to you on the number of species they've pollinated and the relative importance of each species to your bees.
Beekeeping for Your Commercial Property
We offer innovative solutions that can help bring your corporate sustainability programs to life. These include the highest standards of beekeeping, as well as developed workshops and programs that will engage your community – employees, guests, tenants, community leaders and the public – in your sustainability work.
Expert Beekeeping
Hand-crafted, all natural equipment will be installed on your property. Ask us about custom-painted hives!
Colonies of docile honeybees will be introduced into your hives at the start of the season.
We can offer suggestions for pollinator-friendly trees, shrubs, and plants appropriate for your garden.
Our beekeepers will visit your hive for monthly maintenance visits.
You'll receive reports on the health of your hive after each beekeeper visit.
Full-time customer service team will be available to you by phone or email.
Honey Harvesting
When the bees produce surplus honey, we'll harvest, process, bottle, and deliver it for you.
If your bees need all the honey they've produced to get through the winter, we'll share surplus honey with you that we collect from hives at our partner apiaries.
Our corporate beekeeping clients receive a Honey Guarantee of 10 pounds of honey per hive each year.
All honey from Best Bees is raw, unfiltered honey, delivered with custom honey labels with your name and the honey harvest date.
Our beekeeping clients have the option to choose their jar size, and add their own company logo to our cobranded honey labels.
Data & Analysis On Your Hive
Our beekeepers will collect hive data upon each visit that will go into our proprietary hive health program 'Bzzz.'
This data is shared with our in-house scientific team who partner with other research institutions to study the data from your hive and our network of hives across the country.
As your hive data is studied and shared with partners, we will update you on scientific learnings and discoveries that are driving pollinator health forward.
For an additional fee, we can analyze the DNA analysis of your honey, reporting back to you on the number of species they've pollinated and the relative importance of each species to your bees.
Products & Programming
Corporate gifts
We offer many bee products that make great gifts for your tenants, employees, or stakeholders.
Educational Events
Engage your community with educational and hands-on events run by our beekeepers.
Advanced reporting
With advanced data collection at the hive, we deliver bee health and biodiversity metrics.
How Professional Beekeeping Works
Installation
We help you choose an ideal location to establish one or more beehives at your home or workplace.
Maintenance
Our impassioned and experienced beekeepers service your beehives once a month, providing high-quality care and detailed reports.
Harvesting
You keep 100% of the raw honey produced. We'll handle the rest – small batch extraction and bottling with personalized labels.
Research
At every visit, we collect data and share it with our research partners to advance the science of beekeeping and improve the health of pollinators worldwide.
What's Included
What's Included
- Site Evaluation
- Hand-crafted, all-natural beehive equipment installed onsite
- A colony of docile honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica)
- Monthly maintenance visits and follow up reports
- Advanced scheduling so you can alert your team
- Full-time customer service team available by phone or email
- Raw honey, harvested and bottled just for you
- Replacement colonies provided at no cost
- Fully insured professional service
Your hive at your fingertips.
What the portal delivers
Cincinnati Service Area
We proudly serve clients within a 60-minute radius of downtown Cincinnati, including the following counties in Ohio, parts of Indiana, and parts of Kentucky:
Hamilton
Clermont
Franklin
Butler
Dearborn
Boone
Warren
Ripley
Campbell
Unique Challenges and Opportunities to Beekeeping in Cincinnati
Beekeeping Laws in Ohio
Unique Challenges and Opportunities to Beekeeping in Cincinnati
Beekeeping in Cincinnati is shaped by the city’s transitional climate, rolling topography, and mix of urban, suburban, and rural environments. One of the biggest challenges beekeepers face in the region is the unpredictability of seasonal weather. Cincinnati lies at the intersection of northern and southern climate zones, which means winters can be harsh and prolonged one year, then mild and erratic the next. These shifting patterns can disrupt brood development, create mismatches between foraging activity and floral bloom, and increase the risk of early starvation if bees begin brooding too soon in the season.
Hot, humid summers—sometimes accompanied by periods of drought—can also affect nectar flow, making supplemental feeding and hydration critical during peak months. Meanwhile, spring and fall can be brief but highly productive if managed well. Local beekeepers must be flexible and responsive, paying close attention to temperature swings, bloom timing, and hive health throughout the year.
Despite these challenges, Cincinnati offers strong opportunities for healthy, thriving hives. The region’s diverse landscape includes a wealth of flowering trees like black locust, tulip poplar, and basswood, as well as native wildflowers such as goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, and asters that dominate late-summer and fall bloom cycles. Our HoneyDNA analysis in the region shows a strong presence of native plants, especially in residential areas where pollinator gardens and urban greenery provide diverse forage.
The city’s recent push for green infrastructure, combined with the surrounding area's farmland, parks, and river valleys, gives bees access to a wide range of pollen and nectar sources. With proper siting and ongoing management, beekeeping in Cincinnati can be both scientifically valuable and ecologically impactful.
Beekeeping Laws in Ohio
Ohio is generally supportive of beekeeping, with state-level guidance and oversight provided by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA). At the state level, all beekeepers are required to register their hives annually with the ODA, and doing so includes access to optional inspections by certified apiary inspectors. This statewide system helps prevent the spread of pests and diseases, supports healthy colony development, and provides resources to beekeepers looking to strengthen their practice.
Local laws and zoning regulations vary across municipalities in the Greater Cincinnati area. Some cities or townships may have ordinances that address the number of hives allowed per property, distance from property lines, or neighbor notification requirements. These are typically in place to balance community concerns with pollinator health. Best Bees ensures all hives are sited and maintained in full compliance with current local regulations, and we handle permitting or registration where applicable.
Ohio also regulates the transport of bees and used equipment into the state, requiring a certificate of inspection from the state of origin confirming that the bees are disease-free. As part of our scientific beekeeping approach, Best Bees strictly adheres to all importation requirements to ensure the health and safety of colonies across regions.
Our Cincinnati-based beekeepers are fully trained in rooftop safety protocols, pesticide application licensing, and local permitting procedures—ensuring our clients’ hives are not only legal and safe, but also aligned with the best practices in urban apiculture.
About Local Honey
Honey production varies from colony to colony, depending on the strength of the queen, the health of the hive, and the availability of nourishment. New colonies tend to produce less honey than established ones. When there is a surplus of honey, we will harvest and jar it for you.
The composition and flavor of honey varies from hive to hive as well, depending on the floral species available to pollinate. This means that honey from your hive will have a unique profile. Tasting it, you are tasting the composite of all the flowers your bees have visited.
In our studies of HoneyDNA, we've found that honey from urban hives includes a much wider range of species – as much as eight times more than honey from rural and suburban hives!
The composition and flavor of honey varies from hive to hive as well, depending on the floral species available to pollinate. This means that honey from your hive will have a unique profile. Tasting it, you are tasting the composite of all the flowers your bees have visited.
In our studies of HoneyDNA, we've found that honey from urban hives includes a much wider range of species – as much as eight times more than honey from rural and suburban hives!
HoneyDNA
We pioneered the process of identifying the exact percentage of various pollen species found in honey through advanced genomic sequencing. Understanding where bees foraged reveals which plants best feed pollinators in the local environment.
Already Have a Hive?
At Best Bees, we’re proud to be a part of the local beekeeping community in every area in which we work. If not already a member of one of the New York area’s beekeeping associations, we encourage you to join.
Join our Community Scientist movement! Here are some ways you can participate:
- Plant more pollinator habitats on your property
- Use bee-safe pesticide alternatives
- Get involved in local and national lobbying efforts
- Submit your honey for HoneyDNA results
Your HoneyDNA results will be shared with our affiliated non-profit, The Urban Beekeeping Lab, and published on their interactive, global map of all our HoneyDNA samples, contributing to our ongoing biomonitoring research.
We gladly share the learning from our research and our best practices with everyone. To learn more about our scientific team’s past and present work, visit our Research in Action page. Our Webinar and Video Resources page holds all of our webinars, as well as our Founder’s TEDx talks. Finally, check out our Blog, where you can find pollinator educational materials, beekeeping best practices, gardening information, and more thought leadership.
Testimonials
Since our founding in 2010, the knowledge and expertise of our beekeeping and customer service teams has helped us build a loyal following among both our commercial and residential customers here in the Ohio area. These are a just a few examples of what they have to say about working with us:
Safe
Our honey bees, Apis mellifera ligustica, are the most docile species of honey bees, making our hives extremely safe and the instance of stings very unlikely.
Insured
We have a full insurance policy and can provide a Certificate of Insurance (COI) easily.
Experienced
Our beekeepers are trained to work safely in densely populated urban areas. This includes on balconies, rooftops, and skyscrapers.