I get asked this all the time when I am advocating for beekeeping and talking to people about backyard beekeeping.
"how much time does it take". It is a good question from someone contemplating taking up beekeeping.
Obviously this depends on many factors regarding management style, etc., but I never really come up with a solid answer for keeping 1 or 2 hives in ones backyard. A realistic number for people that are on a time budget (like most of us are).
I generally say it takes a couple hours once a week for about 6 weeks in the spring, then summer less intensive or little work, then again about 2 hours a week for 6 weeks in the fall (mixed in with maybe a weekend for extracting and clean up as part of that fall work time). Winter is mainly off except maybe a day or 2 for making up new equipment.
I am not sure that this is an adequate representation. I have about a dozen hives at 2 different bee yards a few miles away plus my backyard hive and my observation hive and do other activities like help new beekeepers or friends that keep bees and some advocacy work, a lot of reading, a lot of building (building a honey cart right now for selling from my front yard), visiting with other beekeepers, spending too much time on forums :). . . it really starts to add up after a while. But, I realize that if I would just keep it to 1 or 2 hives in the backyard it would be much less time intensive - I just can't remember or put together some solid numbers for how much time it takes in a years time for keeping 1-2 hives in one's backyard or on your roof.
What you'all say?