Beekeeping Equipment

Just as every other hobby, raising honey bees needs some equipment just before you setup your bee hive.

The bees equipment must be brought just before you get a call from the post office telling you to get your bees.

The first important equipment is the bee hive. 

There must be five supers in the beehive. The supers are a very important part of the beehive because they are where the bees will be storing their honey. The five supers should be between the bottom of the hive and the hive cover. Supers are very important because they are where the bees will be storing their honey and raising their offspring. The moment the bee hive is active each of these supers will contain nine to ten frames.


You can choose if you want a hive with shallow supers or deep supers. One advantage of these deep supers is that they enable beekeepers to buy only one size foundation. Disadvantages is that, when full, a deep super can weigh over a hundred pounds. The moment your hive has bees make sure you place is somewhere that has a flat surface so that the hive will not fall over when winds blow. Also make sure that you place it somewhere that humans and pets won't move it..

A spacer is a piece of equipment beekeepers use to keep an equal amount of space between the frames while they are in the super.

The next piece of equipment you will need is a smoker. The usage of the smoker is to encourage the bees to leave the hive when you are getting ready to harvest the honey. The smoker is surprisingly simple in its design. The smoker consists of a funnel, a combustion chamber, and bellows. Many beekeepers claim that old, clean burlap is the best material to use in the smoker just because the burlap ignites easily and smolders and smokes. Other beekeepers prefer to use dried corn cobs. Once the fire has been lit in the combustion chamber the bellows will keep it going. The funnel directs the smoke into the hive, encouraging the bees to leave.

Another tool you will need is a metal hive tool. The metal hive tool is used to pry open the hive, separate the hive bodies, and to scrape the frames clean. Think of it as the all purpose tool of beekeeping.

There is no beekeeper that is ready to receive their shipment of bees until they have a bee brush. A bee brush is used to gently brush bees out of the way so that the beekeeper can examine the frames.

When it is time to harvest your honey, you will need a fumer board. A fumer board is a board that is covered in bee removing chemicals and is then used to encourage the bees to leave a super and let you take their honeycombs.

If used bee equipment is alright with you, you can find some great prices on beekeeping equipment on EBay. There are several catalogs and websites that offer beekeeping equipment, and many of those offer beginners packages.