1. Hives
Take note that you cannot keep bees if you don’t provide them with a proper home. The first essential piece of equipment that you must have when you want to join the beekeeping industry is a beehive. Don’t worry because hives are easy to find and purchase. A hive can come pre-assembled or you can put one together fairly easily to save on assembly and shipping cost if applicable. And if you are a do-it-yourselfer, there is always the option of building your own hive.
The two most common domestic beehive designs today are the top bar hive and the Langstroth hive. What distinguishes top bar hives are they have removable frames hanging from the top of the hive. This hive design is popular with many beekeepers due to the ease of removing honeycombs from the frame without causing much of a disturbance to the hive. Additionally, some beekeepers believe that top bar hives promote natural comb production and that bees located in a top bar hive will build comb in a deep catenary curve verse on a manmade foundation frame.
With a top bar hive all the beekeeper needs to do is access and detach frames located in the hive to easily access honeycombs, then simply place the frame back again. With only one level to the hive this process is relatively simple.
On the other hand, Langstroth hives are one of the most popular beehives design due in part to its mainstream look and ability to expand to accommodate a growing hive. The Langstroth hive is essentially a stack of boxes filled with frames that honeybees utilize to build comb on. In this hive, the frames are not as accessible as in a top bar hive, however expansion with the hive may be accomplished by simply stacking a new box on top of pre-existing boxes. This hive is popular in part as it makes the collection of honey an easier process.
2. Bee suit
While keeping bees is not difficult, not getting stung during the process can be a challenge for the novice beekeeper. Hence, the need for a bee suit to protect the beekeeper. Bee suits are relatively inexpensive and often include a vailed hat or hood with a vailed cover. The suit top essentially covers the beekeeper from head to ankle.
Bee suits are generally made from heavy and elasticated fabrics that stymie bee stings. But don’t get the wrong idea, bees are not generally aggressive, and they don’t harm people intentionally. Bees generally only attack if you do something that might endanger their queen or if they get disturbed.
Disturbing their hives and looking for their queen is unavoidable in beekeeping, so you must expect that bees will attempt to sting you even though they are not aggressive by nature.
You also need extra protection for your hands because they are the most exposed body part of every beekeeper. Beekeepers generally wear thick and flexible gloves to protect their hands against bee stings. The gloves although thick in nature should also be flexible to allow for gentle and delicate actions when interacting with the bees.
Extra protection is also required for your feet since a bee suit only reaches the ankles. Thick comfortable and relatively high boots are highly recommended for beekeepers along with a bee suite.
3. Honeycomb frames
All though for many beekeeping is about assisting mother earth, for others the collection of honey is a nice benefit. In order to be effective in honey collection one must deploy a sufficient number of internal frames to accommodate brood, pollen, and nectar collection to sustain the hive throughout the year including winter. The excess amount of honey is for the beekeeper.
Frames in many hives are rectangles that can be thought of as hanging folders found in a filing cabinet. In the case of a hive, the hanging frames are used to store the essentials bees need to survive. The essentials being a nursery, food, and lodging. If you have a large beehive it is akin to having a large filing cabinet that hosts lots of hanging folders. It is on the interior of frames that the honeybee builds out their combs for reproduction and food storage.
Beehive frames should be easy to detach with the use of simple hive tools. You don’t want your frames sealed tight by the bees because if the frames prove hard to extract, the bees may get disturbed and will likely attack you feeling their home is threatened. Hence, it is important to work at gently making sure that these frames are easy to detach allowing for the delicate removal of honeycombs.
4. Hive tool
A hive tool is an important piece of equipment in beekeeping because it is extremely versatile and can be used in different ways related to beekeeping. Plus, it’s really affordable.
A hive tool can separate hive boxes, gently pull up the frames, avoid damaging bee wax, and even utilized to remove leftover wax and propolis from other areas within a beehive.
Propolis is a hard component generated by the bees to seal their hive and is present in all beehives. Often times beekeepers have a hard time removing the substance. A hive tool is a nice implement to get after removing excess propolis that might be sealing frames to the beehive box.
5. Smoker
A smoker is an essential tool in beekeeping. A smoker’s job is to mask or cover up bee pheromones used by bees to signify danger within the hive. If the pheromones are masked by smoke the bees are less likely to be active. These pheromones might otherwise be present when entering a hive.
The use of a smoker tends to have a calming effect on the bees while you are working. Whenever you open your beehive, there is a high possibility that your bees may attack you, especially when you remove honeycombs from the frames.
But utilizing a smoker can be a game-changer when you are performing hive maintenance or taking honey stores from the bees. By simply introducing a few puffs of smoke into the beehive before opening, the beekeeper can more readily detach frames to check on the overall health of the hive or remove honey.
6. Bee brush
Brushing bees may sound absurd but it is very useful in the beekeeping business. Bee brushes are made with soft bristles so that you can brush off bees gently. Bee brushes will come in handy whenever you remove honeycombs from frames or the frames themselves.
When you detach the frames from the hive, the first thing that you will see are hundreds of bees crawling on the frames and guarding their honeycombs, thus making it difficult to remove the honeycomb.
To make the bees let go of the frame, beekeepers use a bee brush to gently detach the bees from the frame and gently push them back into the hive. Bee brushes can also be used in removing bees gently from your bee suit without injuring them or damaging their wings.
7. Essential oils
The use of essential oils in beekeeping is included in the list of nice to have. Beekeepers include them on the list as bees are attracted to these essential oils. This attraction is helpful whenever beekeepers want to transfer swarming bees to a new box or home. All the beekeeper does is simply bath the swarm boxes with essential oil, and bees will voluntarily go to the boxes.
Hive beetles are also a big problem present in most beehives, and they can dominate any hive in an instant when you don’t do constant checkups within your hive. These species are hard to remove, but they can be easily driven out from the hive by using essential oil. The best essential oils that you can buy are those oils that give a strong scent, such as lavender spearmint, lemongrass, or lemon.
