Beekeeping Starter Kit for Homesteaders
Honey bees make a great homestead addition. They provide natural pollination for the garden, delicious honey & useful beeswax for your family, and they contribute to a healthy environment within a 5-mile radius of the hive. But before you catch a swarm or purchase bees, you need to have the right tools to manage them.
Beekeeping Starter Kit
You can purchase a fully assembled kit for beekeeping from most beekeeping supply stores, but you can also gather the tools individually to suit exactly what you want. Let’s discuss the items that you need to get started on your beekeeping journey!
Beekeeping Mentor
My first recommendation to new beekeepers is to find a local mentor if at all possible. While this isn’t technically part of the “tool” kit, having an experienced beekeeper walk you through your first season with bees is absolutely invaluable. Check to see if you have a local beekeeping association an ask if anyone is willing to mentor you.
Bee Hive
The hive is the cornerstone of the beekeeping kit. It serves as a shelter, a place to make & store food, and a place to lay eggs and raise the next generation of bees.
There are several different types of beehives to choose from, each with its own set of pros & cons.
Common Hive Types:
- Langstroth
This is the most commonly used type of beehive. Langstroth hives are the ones that come in starter kits that you can purchase from beekeeping supply stores. These hive body consists of boxes (called supers) that are stacked on top of each other. The bottom super is typically deeper (conveniently called a “deep” box) to allow a large space for the queen to lay eggs and the upper supers are usually mediums for honey production. The supers have frames with wax or plastic foundation for the bees to build off of. Most beekeepers will add a queen excluder between the brood chamber and the honey supers to keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey.
- Top Bar
A top bar hive is a horizontal hive. This type of hive does not have frames with foundations. Instead, there are wooden bars placed along the top of the hive (the bars look like the top of regular frames) and the bees build their own wax foundation. This is closer to how they would build hives in nature so many beekeepers prefer this style of hive. It is more difficult to extract honey without frames so this hive type is more suitable for beekeepers who keep bees for pollination purposes without needing a high honey yield.
- Warre
A Warre hive is basically a mix between a langstroth and a top bar hive. This beehive consists of supers stacked on top of each other like a Langstroth, but there is no frame or foundation, just wooden top bars on top of each super. The build their own foundation off of these wooden bars which allows for a more natural process, however the bees will need to rebuild this foundation every year.
- Layens
The Layens Hive is a horizontal hive with extra deep frames. These frames do have sides (unlike the top bar), but they do not have foundation. This allows the bees to build natural foundation while still being able to use a honey extractor. The obstacle to using this type of hive is that it isn’t commonly available so the hive and frames need to be custom built and a special honey extractor needs to be used to accommodate the large frames.
Hive Tool
Hive tools are like mini crowbars for beehives. They work to pry open the hive lid, pull frames apart, and scrape off the excess comb.
Frame Puller
Removing frames from the hive can be tricky because the beeswax and propolis glue them together. A frame puller makes this easier by providing grip and leverage to pull the frames loose and lift them out of the hive.
Bee Smoker
A smoker gently pushes cool smoke into the hive to help keep the bees calm by masking alarm pheromones. This allows beekeepers to keep the risk of being stung and the stress on the bees to a minimum while working in the hive.
Bee Brush
A bee brush has long soft bristles that gently push bees off frames so you can inspect the hive for honey production, brood, pests, and disease. It also helps when removing frames for honey extraction.
Honey Extraction Tools
To extract honey from your hive you will need a honey extractor, a knife to remove wax caps, a tub to filter the wax caps, a honey sieve, and a bottling bucket.
Extractor: While an extractor isn’t necessary it is extremely helpful if you want to harvest the most honey from the frames you pull.
Uncapping Knife: This knife will remove the beeswax caps to reveal the honey underneath and allow the extractor to spin the honey out.
Cap Filtering Tub: The wax caps can go into a tub with a filter or sieve so extra honey can drop off.
Honey Seive: A sieve is placed on the bottling bucket. Honey will flow from the extractor through the sieve into the bottling bucket. This helps to remove any extra wax and other debris before bottling.
Bottling Bucket: This is a 5-gallon bucket that has a “honey gate” at the bottom to allow honey to flow from the bucket into your bottles or jars.
Beekeeping Books
It is a good idea to keep beekeeping reference books on hand. Of course, we have the internet with information at our fingertips, but that may not always be available (or the best option). Books like The Backyard Beekeeper, Bee Kept- With Wild and Free Honeybees, and Beekeeping for Beginners: How to Raise Your First Bee Colonies by Amber Bradshaw can provide you with information you need to set up and care for your bees. More beekeeping book recommendations can be found here.
Entrance Reducer / Mouse Guard
An entrance reducer is useful to reduce to risk of other bees robbing the hive, entrance of pests, and it helps to keep the hive temperature more regulated. Entrance reducers can be wooden or metal. Wooden reducers are good for temperature regulation and keeping robber bees out, but mice will chew right through it. If you are trying to keep mice out (especially going into winter) you can buy a metal mouse guard or make your own.
Beekeeping Protective Gear
Beekeeping protective gear varies from one beekeeper to the next. Some prefer to be fully suited up when working with bees and others use no protective clothing at all. I suggest starting out with a beesuit or at least a veil when starting out. As you get used to working with the bees you can decide what you prefer. It is also a good idea to keep an epipen nearby in case your do get stung. Even if you don’t think you are allergic to bees, multiple stings at one time can cause a reaction- ask me how I know.
It’s Bee Time!
Once you have your supplies and you have research the honey bee management practices that interest you, it’s time to go get your bees! Whether you catch a wild swarm or purchase a package of bees, we wish you the best in your new beekeeping operation!