All kinds of fantastic tools, gadgets, and equipment are available for the beginner beekeeper. You must consider them carefully and invest in the specific tools and equipment to ensure the smooth functioning of your hive and for harvesting honey and other products. These essential items will help keep your bees comfortable and also let you inspect your hive from time to time.
This is our list of the essential beekeeping equipment and tools every beginner beekeeper must consider.
Essential Beekeeping Equipment and Tools for Beekeepers
Hive Bodies and Frames
Hive bodies like deep and medium supers form the structural framework of your bees’ abode. Frames provide a safe space for bees to build their comb and store honey, pollen, and brood. You can buy wooden or sturdy, food-grade plastic frames that fit inside hive bodies and provide support for the bees’ comb. You can easily remove these frames for inspection and extracting honey.
Bottom Board
A bottom board not only forms the base of the hive but also provides an entrance and exit for your bees. Bottom boards are an important part of bee-keeping equipment as they also help regulate the temperature and humidity inside the hive. Furthermore, they serve as landing platforms for foraging bees returning to the hives.
Covers
Every beehive needs an inner and outer cover. The inner cover is positioned between the outer cover and the topmost hive body. It performs many important tasks including insulation and ventilation. It also reduces condensation. The outer cover protects the hive from rain, wind, and sunlight.
Beehive Stand
A beehive stand is necessary to prevent predators and pests from getting inside the hive. It also elevates the hive to prevent water logging.
Beekeeper’s Protective Gear
Every beekeeper must use protective beekeeper equipment to prevent getting stung.
Bee Suit
A bee suit is made of protective fabrics like cotton or polyester or a combination of the two. Full-body bee suits have zippers and can be worn with wrist and ankle straps to deter bees from getting inside your suit.
Beekeeping suits come in light colors like white or light yellow as these colors are not attractive to the bees. Darker bee suits are also available but they absorb more heat and are inconvenient in warmer climates.
Beekeeping Jacket
This is an alternative to the full bee suit. It offers protection to your torso, arms, and neck. You can pair it with a bee hat or veil. Wear thick jeans and boots to protect your legs and feet.
Beekeeping Pants
These offer protection to your lower body, legs, and lower torso and are made with the same protective material as the beekeeping suit. They have elasticized cuffs to protect the ankles.
Bee Hat or Veil
Bee suits come with hats or veils or you can purchase them separately. The veil is made of fine mesh fabric that prevents bees from stinging you on the eyes and face. The hat has a wide brim and the veil can be attached to it to protect your neck and head region.
Gloves
Opt for thick gloves that won’t impact your dexterity as you need your hands and fingers free to grasp the frames and operate other tools. Dishwashing rubber gloves are great or you could use leather gloves.
Sturdy Boots
Wear sturdy work boots that can protect your feet and ankles from bee stings. You can tuck the bee suit pants into the boots or cuff the ankles with ankle straps.
Smoker
A bee smoker is necessary for moving the bees to lower frames for inspection or honey extraction. These days, you can buy electric bee smokers which are less of a fire hazard. Traditional bee smokers require smoker fuel (burlap, wood shavings, or untreated cardboard) which provides cool smoke to mask your bees’ alarm pheromones.
Bee Brush
This is a small, soft-bristled brush to gently brush away bees from the frames/hive components while inspecting them. Bee brushes let you handle bees without hurting them and without causing excessive disruption to the hive.
Hive Tool
A hive tool is a versatile piece of beekeeping equipment. Bees create wax or propolis that causes the hive frames to get stuck. The hive tool comes with a flat, wedge-shaped end that lets beekeepers gently pry off the excess wax or propolis to separate the frames.
Feeders
Bee feeders are necessary when their natural food sources are scarce. You can choose from internal or external feeders. Internal feeders are placed inside the hive and external feeders can be attached outside the hive. You can fill the feeders with sugar water and other supplements to ensure your bees have enough nourishment.
Queen Excluder
Queen excluders are special tools placed between the hive bodies or supers to prevent the queen from accessing certain parts of the hive. In their simplest form, excluders consists of openings at specific intervals that allow worker bees to pass through but restrict the queen. This ensures that the queen remains in the designated areas.
Bee Escape Board
Sometimes, you want to remove bees from certain supers. In this case, adding a bee escape board between the upper-deep hive body and the honey supers lets you clear the bees. Bees can travel down the brood nest but they are unable to figure out how to travel back into the honey supers, making it a one-way trip.
Honey Extractor
Honey extractors are devices that use centrifugal force to extract honey from the capped combs. Add the supers into the extractor and rotate it at low speed. Slowly increase the speed to crush the comb and extract the honey which then flows out from a drain pipe with a valve for collection. Extractors can be manual and electrically powered.
Honey Press
A honey press is needed for extracting liquid honey from top bar hives like Kenyan or Warre hives. Honey presses are similar to apple cider vinegar presses and are typically used by European beekeepers. Honey presses crush the comb which can set your honey production back a bit for the next season.
The Beginner Beekeepers Tool Kit
These are just a few pieces of beekeeping equipment and tools every beekeeper needs to buy. Each piece of equipment has a specific function in maintaining and managing the hive, facilitating the management and harvest of honey, and other hive products. Every beekeeper should invest in quality equipment and ensure it is used and maintained properly for successful beekeeping.
Beekeeper Equipment FAQs
What Are Hive Bodies and Frames Used For in Beekeeping?
Hive bodies form the structure of a beehive and house the frames, which provide space for bees to build comb and store honey, pollen, and brood.
Why Is a Bottom Board Essential for a Beehive?
A bottom board provides the base of the hive, acts as a landing platform for foragers, and helps regulate temperature and humidity inside the hive.
What Is the Purpose of Inner and Outer Covers in a Beehive?
Inner covers provide insulation, ventilation, and reduce condensation, while outer covers protect the hive from external elements like rain, wind, and sunlight.
Why Should I Use a Beehive Stand?
A hive stand elevates the hive to prevent water logging and protects it from predators and pests like ants and mice.
What Protective Gear Do Beekeepers Need?
Beekeepers should wear a bee suit, jacket, pants, gloves, a hat or veil, and sturdy boots to protect themselves from stings during hive inspections.
How Does a Bee Smoker Help Beekeepers?
A bee smoker calms the bees by masking their alarm pheromones, allowing beekeepers to inspect the hive or harvest honey without causing stress to the colony.
What Is a Bee Brush Used For?
A bee brush has soft bristles designed to gently move bees off frames or hive components without harming or agitating them.
What Is a Hive Tool and Why Is It Important?
A hive tool is a multipurpose device used to separate hive components, scrape off propolis, and manage frames stuck together with wax or resin.
When Should I Use a Queen Excluder?
A queen excluder is used to prevent the queen from accessing honey supers, ensuring that brood is only raised in designated areas of the hive.
How Do Honey Extractors and Honey Presses Differ?
Honey extractors use centrifugal force to extract honey from combs without damaging them, while honey presses crush combs to extract liquid honey, typically used in top bar hives.
Sam Fielding is an apiary student at The Ohio State University with a strong passion for beekeeping and honey production. Dedicated to advancing the resilience of bees, Sam is actively involved in establishing bee colonies in the lower regions of the United States, including Texas and Florida, as part of a volunteer program. His hands-on experience in these diverse climates has given him a unique perspective on bee health and hive management.
Sam’s dedication to both the scientific and ethical aspects of beekeeping makes him a valuable voice in the apiculture community, advocating for both bee health and consumer rights. He also helps us maintain our facebook page, so feel free to get in touch with him there!
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