What Equipment Is Necessary For Beekeeping?

Beekeeping has been around since the Middle Ages. Glue boards and traps are not beekeeping. They are a death sentence for bees. Beekeeping is a lot easier than you might think – with a few tools, you can be well on your way to harvesting honey from your backyard. Here is the necessary equipment:

Components Of The Hive

Hive – The main structure that holds all the bees.

For beginner beekeepers: most books will tell you to use a top feeder. This is not necessary if you’re doing your own local honey crop. No matter what the recommendation, never use the newspaper – it kills the bees! Watch videos online. Check out our YouTube Channel and learn all about beekeeping! Most importantly, suit up and go into your beehives yourselves to check them out.

Entry points – At least one entrance point per hive. At most, you might need 3 – 8 openings per hive, but some literature suggests more (I say more, but I’m not sure if there’s a scientific consensus).

Hive box – These are basically boxes that the bees live in.

Protective Gear 

Even if you are just starting out, you will want to invest in protective gear like a hive box, a bee suit, a veil, and a smoker to treat the hive if you have a nasty situation.

A Bee Suit

A bee suit (a.k.a. bee suit) is the beekeeper’s best friend. You wear this a lot during a successful beekeeping season, as bees will sting you whenever they feel threatened. However, bees also like honey, so they will fly into your suit to retrieve it.

A Veil

A veil is usually worn with a veil bar. A veil bar is similar to a suit bar in that it can be slid up and down the beekeeper’s face and comes equipped with a snap ring so that the beekeeper can remove it quickly. A veil is usually worn with a veil bar.

Smoker

It is best to start with small colonies if you’re new to beekeeping, so you are not overwhelmed with overgrown, angry, and unhappy bees. A smoker is used to “feed” the hive to calm the bees and make it easier to get into the hive.

Sprayer Bottle

A bottle with a solution of sugar water works miracles to keep the bees calm & busy. Don’t believe us? check out this video of an extremely aggressive colony being tamed with just a sugar sprayer bottle.

Final Thought

Honey production is widely accepted to be a good thing for humanity. Beekeepers have proven that this can be done humanely and safely without any risk of disease.

Some argue that keeping bees will improve the environment as these insects remove parasitic insects that would otherwise damage crops.

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