what do i need to start keeping bees

Updated on April 1st, 2022

Anecdotal evidence in online forums (and my own feel) indicates that a loftier percent of beginning beekeepers quit subsequently a year or two.

Higher than anticipated costs (in dollars and time), hive mortality issues, failure to understand the piece of work required, and unrealistic expectations are issues that crusade beginners to give up early. First beekeeping with some basic instruction and advanced training for a ameliorate beginning beekeeping feel.

This article outlines and centralizes all the information you lot need to implement these 11 action steps on how to commencement beekeeping:

1. Brainstorm your beekeeping education and learn some nuts.
2. Notice a suitable beehive location.
3. Effigy out your budget.
4. Order your beloved bees.
5. Cull a hive type and society it.
6. Buy basic apiculture tools.
7. Go protective vesture.
8. Prepare up your hive(south) and,
9. Install your bees!
10. Keep your beekeeping educational activity.
11.  Manage your colonies to become them to next leap.

You do not need to exist an expert to become started, merely you do demand to account for timing problems related to acquiring and setting up equipment and, of form, getting your first bees.

This article is our guide to beekeeping for beginners. Related articles cover each step in more than detail.

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When To Start Beekeeping

Your first beekeeping season will take flight in the spring when your honey bees arrive, and y'all install them in a beehive.

However, because of the initial learning curve and the need to lodge bees and equipment in advance, beekeeping for beginners should starting time no afterwards than the fall, with a program to exist managing your first beehives the following spring.

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Beekeeping Education: Learn The Basics

Earlier y'all swoop into the deep end of the beekeeping puddle, take some time to think about if apiculture is correct for you.

Since yous are reading this article, you have started this process.

Keeping love bees can be a gratifying feel, but information technology likewise has its challenges. There are fiscal considerations, time commitments, and sometimes strenuous piece of work involved.

Every bit the first step in your beekeeping educational activity, see our article about beekeeping as a hobby to consider if beekeeping is for you. If y'all want to take the next stride, acquire some beekeeping basics and start your didactics in earnest.

In that location are a lot of great educational resources available to beekeeping newbies. Keep in mind that the information you find is likely to be a mixture of fact and opinion. Get input from a diverseness of sources and keep an open mind.

The best places to learn apiculture are:

• Beekeeping books and classes are the all-time way to learn beginning beekeeping requirements and techniques. These books and courses organize information, so it is easier to follow.
• Beekeeping associations (check Bee Culture Magazine's Find A Local Beekeeper Directory for ideas.)
• Blogs, online forums, and YouTube channels.

Learn more than! Run across our commodity about apiculture didactics for beginners, including specific book recommendations, information on beekeeping courses (including a Complimentary online video series), and other sources to increase your apiculture knowledge!

Y'all may have noticed that we had a footstep 9, "continue your beekeeping didactics." Always go on reading and learning. Apiculture is not a "ready it and forget information technology" hobby.

Find A Suitable Beehive Location

To commencement beekeeping, you lot need to have a suitable location for beehives.

You lot do not need a lot of acreage for a couple of beehives.

While access to food sources is essential, those sources do not need to be on your property. Honey bees travel significant distances to forage. Withal, providing additional water nearby is beneficial at times of drought or loftier heat.

Beehives are best situated facing east/southeast, level from side to side, and near water sources, nectar, and pollen. In improver, they should be easily accessible with room to work. Other considerations are afternoon shade, winter windbreaks, shielding from neighbors, skilful airflow, and water drainage.

Note: our directional data above is for the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the direction would be due east or northeast.

The amount of infinite y'all need and where you place a beehive may depend on beekeeping rules and regulations in your locality, especially in urban and suburban areas where neighbors are nearby.

Learn more! Read our commodity nigh where to place your beehive for details regarding these recommendations, options to consider if your property is not suitable, ways to mitigate problems in smaller spaces, and more.

Nosotros also suggest you see our data beneath nearly beehives.

Figure Out Your Budget

Beginning beekeeping tin can exist rather expensive. How much your first year will toll depends on the diverse choices you make.

Based on our recent surveys of reputable online suppliers, we estimate your kickoff year of beekeeping will toll about $725 to purchase i hive, your first bees, protective gear, basic tools, and miscellaneous supplies.

Your costs will vary based on your circumstances and some choices you make.

Learn more than! See our article How Much Does Information technology Cost To Commencement Apiculture? for detailed information on equipment you should become and the impact of your choices. And then, utilize the included computer to guess your first-year costs.

Unexpected expenses are discouraging to beginners. Our article tin assistance y'all avoid unpleasant surprises.

Choose A Hive Type & Order It

At that place are three main hive types to cull from:

• Langstroth hives,
• Warré hives, or
• A horizontal hive such equally a Top Bar Hive, a Langstroth Long Hive, or a Layen'south Hive.

The Langstroth hive is the most common in North America and what you lot probably think of when you lot visualize a typical beehive.

We recommend that beginning beekeepers start with Langstroth hives. They are the easiest hives to notice suppliers and advice for.

Learn more than! See our article for more details about the Langstroth hive and why nosotros think it is the all-time hive type for beginning beekeepers. The commodity also provides data about other hive options. Also, cheque our list of best starter beekeeping kits.

Order Your Love Bees

You can buy bees from reputable local beekeepers and online suppliers.

Bee suppliers ordinarily take orders starting in December and January for the following spring. Suppliers have limited supplies and make them bachelor on or nearly specific dates.

Get your bees at the earliest engagement that fits your schedule. An early get-go for your hives helps your colony build up stores in fourth dimension for wintertime. Having your colony survive winter may be the most critical step in your first year of beekeeping.

When buying honey bees, you lot have two primary choices to make: what "race" of bees to purchase and whether y'all want them in a "bee bundle" or a "nuc."

Honey bees are classified past "race" based on their genetic history. Italian, Carniolan, Caucasian, and Russian bees are common types. There are likewise hybrid bees bred for specific traits like Varroa resistance, such as Saskatraz.

Choosing a type of bee can be confusing for beginners. We recommend that you purchase your first bees from a local beekeeper, if bachelor. Local bees are genetically adjusted to your local climate.

If you cannot get local bees, Italian bees are an excellent choice for beginners. Italian bees are the most common in North America. They are widely available, prolific, and excellent foragers.

Larn more than about the advantages and drawbacks of mutual bee races in our article What Type Of Honey Bees To Buy.

You tin can learn dear bees in two basic formats:

• A bee package is a box of most 3 lbs. of bees (effectually 10,000 bees). The package includes a caged queen and a tin can of sugar syrup to feed the bees in transit.
• A nuc (pronounces "newk") is a nucleus colony usually consisting of a small hive box with 5 deep frames. The bees take been in the nuc for a while. The queen is accepted, and the frames likely include drawn comb, breed, pollen, and nectar. Encounter our article about nucs for more details.

Nucs are more than expensive than packages simply are easier to install in a hive.

Note: Nucs are more often than not available for Langstroth hives and can be hard to observe for top bar hives.

Learn more! See Where To Buy Bees for everything you need to know about buying bees, including shipping considerations, transporting bees locally, suggested suppliers, and packages vs. nucs.

Buy Beekeeping Tools

Beekeeping Tools

At that place are three "must-take" apiculture tools for beginners:

• Bee smoker
• Hive tool
• Bee brush

A bee hive smoker helps bees during a hive inspection. Puffing cool smoke on the bees to move out of your way, gorge on dearest (which calms them), and disrupts alarm pheromones that may make them more defensive.

Calmer, less defensive bees are easier to manage. Accept a lit smoker on every inspection, so you lot have it if needed.

Learn more! See our article most bee smokers, explaining how they work, how to calorie-free them, clean them, and more than.

You may non need a smoker on each hive visit, but you will nearly always need a hive tool.

Hive tools are hand-held implements that serve many purposes. Hive tools separate and elevator boxes or frames that are stuck together with propolis. A sharp edge scrapes off wax, propolis, or even a stinger lodged in your skin.

Larn more! See our article What Is A Hive Tool? for data about various hive tools and how to use them.

A bee brush will move some bees out of your mode or castor them off a frame for inspection. (Our beekeeping teacher suggested we use a large turkey feather that is just as effective.)

Though we call the bee brush a "must-take" tool, we rarely use information technology now; all the same, we recommend beginners get i.

As we got more than comfy working with bees, we learned to remove bees from frames with a adept difficult milkshake without being freaked out. I believe that as a beginning apiculturist, you will be more than comfortable with a brush.

Always brush frames with a gentle, upward stroke.

Become Protective Beekeeping Clothing

I know there are videos online of beekeepers wearing petty or no, protection. However, these are mostly very experienced beekeepers who accept adapted to the stings. They also stay calm and tend not to do things that will crusade the bees to be overly defensive.

As a newbie beekeeper, you volition probably be a fiddling broken-hearted when you showtime handling bees. Therefore, wear protective gear when you first. Then, subsequently, when you are more experienced, yous can decide how conscientious you desire to be in this regard.

Protective wear can include:

• A veil to protect your optics and confront;
• Either a full bee accommodate or a bee jacket;
• Leather gloves; and,
• Boots.

As y'all gain conviction and become more comfy with the bees, you may opt to wearable less protective equipment (though we recommend yous e'er wear a veil).

No matter what y'all practice regarding protective gear, look to be stung.

Learn more than! Read our consummate guide to apiculture protective article of clothing for more information nearly different options and what to look for when shopping.

Set Upwardly Your Hive

Set up your hive before your bees arrive, especially if you get a bee package. You exercise not want your bees sitting effectually for days while you get things together.

You may take a little more latitude with a nuc, depending on how many frames the bees have filled. With only five frames in a nuc, they may be shut to capacity, and you will need to give them more room chop-chop.

How much time you need to ready your hive depends on what yous bought. Fully assembled and painted boxes along with assembled frames and foundation take picayune fourth dimension.

If, still, y'all bought unassembled equipment, you need time to put it together.

Learn more! See our commodity about how to set up a beehive your first time.

Install Your Bees In A Hive

If you lot have followed our guide, y'all ordered your bees in plenty of time to receive them in early bound, later you set up your hive.

How you put honey bees in the hive will depend on whether yous got a bee package or a nuc.

We recommend a nuc if information technology is inside your budget considering information technology is much simpler to install. Using your hive tool, lift the frames with the bees on them, and place them in your hive.

If whatsoever bees remain in the nuc, milk shake them into the hive. Alternatively, place the nuc box in front of the hive, and the bees will effigy out where they need to go.

Installing a bee package is a chip more than complicated.

With a bee parcel, you put the caged queen in the hive offset give the colony a few days to accept and free her.

Once the queen cage is in the hive, milk shake the box to get other bees into the hive.

Acquire more! Read How To Install Bees In A New Hive for a detailed explanation of what to do when your colonies go far.

Continue Your Beekeeping Teaching

With your dear bees in a hive, y'all are now officially a beekeeper. But the goal is to be a successful beekeeper.

Keep up with your beekeeping education. Read more than books, watch more videos, explore online data, and proceed learning.

Manage Your Bee Colonies

As a apiculturist, your job is to manage and tend to your livestock, the beloved bees.

Your primary goal as a first beekeeper should be to go your colonies through their starting time full yr. Achieving that goal requires that you actively manage your hives.

Managing your honey bees includes:

• Regular hive inspections to assess conditions such as:
  • The status and wellness of the queen
  • Population and space needs
  • Adequacy of food stores
  • Prove of pests or illness
  • Colony's disposition
  • Indications of swarming
  • Cross combing
  • Concrete status of hive components
• Taking steps to remediate problems noted during hive inspections;
• Calculation and removing boxes and frames equally dictated by the colony's population and activities;
• Limiting the bear on of robbing on your hives;
• Preparing your hives for winter;
• And eventually, harvesting beloved and other hive products.

Learn more! See our series Managing Beehives (A Beginners Guide) for information on how to inspect to hives, seasonal hive direction information, keeping records, and more.

Conclusion

Advance preparation is the key to starting a backyard beekeeping hobby.

If you follow the steps in this article, you will reduce the probability of unpleasant surprises that tin be discouraging to beginning beekeepers.

Get your bees through the beginning year and you lot will be able to enjoy your own, harvested honey earlier you know information technology!

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Source: https://www.beekeepingfornewbies.com/how-to-start-beekeeping/

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