Equipment – What do you really need.

Having looked, briefly, at the ‘Why’ of beekeeping; and in more depth at ‘Where’, we now look at ‘What’.

What will you need to start beekeeping? There is not a lot you’ll need just to get started. As you progress you may find that beekeeping is quite lucrative and decide to grow. As your apiary increases you’ll need more equipment, but at the very beginning you’ll need, obviously, a hive with bees. Next (assuming you’ve already established ‘Where’ you’ll be keeping them), you’ll need a veil, gloves, a smoker and a hive tool. And that is pretty much it.

As to details about the equipment, all I’ll say here is that there are a lot of beekeeping equipment suppliers on the net, each with pretty substantial catalogues that you can browse through.
Try: http://www.honeyshop.co.uk/equipment.html

Briefly, the veil can fit over the head or it may be of the type that fits over the whole torso and having long sleeves. If you really need to cover up get a pair of overalls. Theses MUST be white or a light colour. Bees DO NOT like dark colours.
The gloves will need gauntlets with elastic tops.
The hive tool is needed to prise the frames out of the hive. It also needs one end to be sharp – not too sharp but sharp enough to scrape wax off the top of the top bar of the frame, to prise off the inner cover or to scrape off propolis used to ‘stick’ the frames in place.

As mentioned in the last article, you will need a stand to place the hives on in order to keep them off the ground. These may be made of wood or they may be metal. However, a very cheap – and durable alternative – is an old motorcar tyre. It serves the purpose admirably, it will probably cost you nothing AND it will not rot or rust.

You might find that you need an extractor. These vary in capacity and price and, even ‘cheaper’ ones are expensive. If you join your local beekeeper’s society you may find that one of the older (more established) members has an extractor that you may use. Otherwise getting the honey out of the combs will be very difficult, messy and time consuming. Remember that, just as you need a place to keep your bees, you also need a place to work with the honey. You do, after all, need to keep in your mum’s/wife’s good books and not mess up her kitchen too much. You could sell your honey in the comb or, if you have some friends who are also interested in keeping bees, join forces and club in to buy an extractor.

If you do get to the point where you need to afford an extractor, you’ll also need an ‘uncapping knife’. These can be either electric or steam heated. You can get away with a sharp carving knife and a jug of hot water. Although this is feasible, it is not ideal.

Keeping bees involves more than having a box of bees somewhere and collecting honey every now-and-again. There is a certain amount of management required – and we’ll have a look at that next time.

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