How To Become A Beekeeper; What You’ll Need
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So you want to become a beekeeper? No worries, we will show you what supplies you’ll need to get started to become a successful beekeeper.
What You’ll Need To Raise Honey Bees For The Beginner
So you’ve decided you want to raise honey bees but don’t know where to start? No worries, we will show you what supplies you will need to become a successful beekeeper.
What It Takes To Become A Hobbyist Honey Beekeeper
Becoming a beekeeper is not only an exciting hobby but a rewarding one as well. A hobbyist beekeeper is one who keeps bees for pleasure or fun and without intent to profit from honey. The hobbyist may sell honey only to cover the costs of the hobby. Keeping bees is an experience in itself. Learning about bees and their behaviors and interactions, listening to them as they are in their hives buzzing away, watching them do the bee dance and guard their hive, inspecting hives for growth and one of the most rewarding experience is collecting fresh honey from the hives.
By all means, becoming a honey beekeeper is not a cheap hobby in the beginning. Plus, there are a few thing to keep in mind:
- Time: Do you have the time to manage a honey beehive?
- Location: Do you have the right location for maintaining a beehive?
- Preparedness: Do you have everything needed to manage a beehive?
Below I will share a few must haves needed even before obtaining bees.
Time Commitment
Managing a beehive does take a little time. In the beginning, a beekeeper needs to be able to check on the hive several times a month. After that, once the colony is established, a beekeeper may spend up to 20 or even 30 hours tending to bees annually (give or take) throughout the year. Time really varies due to each climate/season and how many beehives you are tending to. As in the fall months or during honey harvest more time may be needed depending on all the above. Plus, are you doing this alone or will you be having a helper? Just a few things to think about.
The initial set up
The initial set up is probably the most important time in the beginning. Plan on spending at least 1 hour just to install the bees into their forever home. It doesn’t take a full hour to install the bees but gathering all the supplies needed, donning the bee suit, hat and gloves, preparing the smoker and then putting everything away. You get the gist. Actually, we installed our 5 frame nuc of bees in around 15 minutes.
What’s A Nuc?
A nuc, aka a nucleus hive, is a box of bees usually purchased from a reliable beekeeper. The nuc will contain 5 frames holding about 3-5 pounds of bees. Usually there are about 3,000 bees per pound. So, if you get a five frame nuc box you’ll get an established hive with around 15,000 bees and that includes the queen bee. Nuc hives cost up to around $200 each and if you order them before spring you may get a better deal. Just search in your area, check google or there are even groups on Facebook that are helpful.
Location
A bee hive just can’t be placed anywhere. Usually if you live in city limits where the area is zoned as “residential”, honey bees are usually not allowed but just to be safe check with your City Ordinances and laws. If it is acceptable to raise honey bees in your area you want to place your bees in the perfect location. It’s always best to have the hive on a flat location with the opening or front of the beehive facing southeast or where it gets morning sun. We started out with three Langstroth beehives and placed them facing southeast on a homemade stand.
Getting Prepared Before Obtaining Honey Bees
Before bringing bees home you want to be fully prepared. Therefore, set yourself up for success! You’ll need a bee hive along with some other supplies as noted below.
The Bee Hive
Having the right equipment is essential to raising bees. I highly recommend to start out with a beehive kit. The most popular beehive kit for beginner bee keepers is a Langstroth hive because of it’s universality and availability of parts. This Beginner Hive Kit will provide the equipment you need to get set-up to become a beekeeper! Contents include:
- 10-frame Langstroth beehive also called the “brood box” (including frames with foundation installed).
- Mite grid
- Variable entrance reducer
- Screened bottom board
- Vented inner cover
- Telescoping outer cover
- Gloves
- Veil
- Smoker with smoker fuel
- Bee brush
- Hive tool
- Frame feeder
- Beekeeping for Dummies book
BENEFIT – The Langstroth hive comes pre-assembled and features a telescoping outer cover, vented inner cover, 10 natural wood frames with wax-coated black plastic foundation (makes it easy to see eggs laid by the queen), screened bottom board, entrance reducer, and mite grid.
Other Supplies Needed For Beekeeping
As noted above, the kit comes with a pre-assembled brood box. The brood box is where the queen lays her eggs and the larvae and pupae develop. The brood box also holds pollen, nectar or honey which serves to feed the developing larve. The drones and worker bees hang out with the queen in the brood box too. Having one brood box in the beginning is sufficient. As the colony gets larger you may want to consider adding a second brood box. Something not mentioned yet that would be beneficial would be to invest in a bee suit. I recommend just going with something less expensive like this in the beginning and then as you really get into beekeeping then get something you really like.
Raising Bees For Honey?
If raising bees for honey you will need to purchase a queen excluder and a honey super box with frames and foundation.
The Queen Excluder
The goal of a queen excluder is to keep the queen in the brood box to lay eggs. In order to keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey super it is mandatory to have a queen excluder. Since the queen is larger than the worker bees she will not be able to pass through the excluder and get up into the honey supers. There are two types of excluders available for the Langstroth hives; plastic queen excluder and a 10-Frame wood bound metal excluder. Keep in mind though that the 10-Frame wood bound metal queen excluder is more durable and will last much longer than the plastic excluder.
The Honey Supers
A honey super is a hollow box that holds the frames for honey. There are two types of supers; Deep Super or Medium Super. They also come in 8 Frame or 10 Frame Supers. I recommend going with a Medium 8 Frame Super because when the 10 frame is full of honey it’s super heavy.
Hive Top Feeder – optional
Even though the Hive Kit comes with a plastic frame feeder I highly recommend using a Hive Top Feeder with Floating Racks instead. Having a feeder with floating racks holds more feed and helps keep the bees from drowning. This feeder not only feeds the bees but can insulates the hive as well during winter months. The major perk of having a hive top feeder? Keeping the bees from drowning.
Prepare Hive Boxes
Since the hive boxes are natural wood you should probably take steps to protect the boxes from the outdoor elements.
To do this the boxes should either be stained or painted. It’s not necessary but I do recommend it. You see, once your bees are in their homes it’s not going to be easy to paint the boxes after the fact, if you know what I mean. I just went to my local hardware store and bought house paint. Just so you know, I did buy a gallon which was way too much. When painting the boxes be sure to paint all areas that will only be exposed to the elements, meaning do not paint the insides of the boxes. I would also paint the top and bottom edges of each box being careful not to get paint on the insides. DO NOT Paint the entrance reducer or the vented inner cover.
If you’re feeling creative add a little of your personal touch to the boxes. I wanted to doll my boxes up just because that’s me.
TIP: Allow boxes to dry completely before stacking on top of each other or the boxes will all stick together and you’ll have to really pry them apart. There will be times throughout the season where you’ll find the hive tool will come in handy.
Bee Stands to Protect Bees
To protect the beehives from critters it is recommended to place the bees up off the ground. Keeping the hives off the ground protects them from mice getting into the hive and other animals like raccoons and mostly skunks. Once the hives are up off the ground these critters can’t get to the opening of the hives and destroy your bee colony. Some beekeepers will use cylinder blocks to place their beehives on. My husband made a hive stand where we didn’t have to bend down much to access the hive and a little landing platform for the bees. How sweet was that!?
By the way, I didn’t realize this at the time but with all my excitement about becoming a beekeeper my husband wanted to get in on the action so he built the stand so he could add two more beehives! So now, we have three beehives!
BEE FACT
Did you know? Honeybees will visit two million flowers to make one pound of honey! That’s a lot of flowers! I hope this article is helpful to you. If you have any questions please feel free to place comments below.
I AM EXCITED YOUR INTERESTED IN HOW TO BECOME A BEEKEEPER AND WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOUR BEE JOURNEY TURNS OUT!
NEW POST COMING SOON!
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