what do i need to start keeping bees
Updated on April 1st, 2022
Anecdotal show in online forums (and my own feel) indicates that a high percent of kickoff beekeepers quit after a twelvemonth or two.
College than predictable costs (in dollars and time), hive mortality problems, failure to understand the work required, and unrealistic expectations are issues that crusade beginners to requite up early. Start apiculture with some basic education and advanced preparation for a ameliorate outset beekeeping experience.
This article outlines and centralizes all the information y'all demand to implement these 11 activeness steps on how to start apiculture:
- Begin your beekeeping education and learn some basics.
- Find a suitable beehive location.
- Effigy out your budget.
- Order your dear bees.
- Choose a hive type and order information technology.
- Buy basic beekeeping tools.
- Get protective vesture.
- Prepare your hive(s) and,
- Install your bees!
- Go on your apiculture education.
- Manage your colonies to get them to next spring.
Yous do not need to be an expert to go started, but y'all do need to account for timing problems related to acquiring and setting upwardly equipment and, of course, getting your beginning bees.
This article is our guide to beekeeping for beginners. Related manufactures cover each footstep in more than item.
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When To Commencement Apiculture
Your commencement beekeeping season will take flying in the spring when your love bees get in, and y'all install them in a beehive.
However, because of the initial learning bend and the need to lodge bees and equipment in accelerate, beekeeping for beginners should start no later on than the autumn, with a plan to be managing your first beehives the following spring.
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Beekeeping Education: Acquire The Nuts
Before you lot swoop into the deep cease of the beekeeping puddle, accept some fourth dimension to call up about if beekeeping is right for you.
Since y'all are reading this article, y'all have started this process.
Keeping beloved bees can be a gratifying experience, but information technology too has its challenges. There are financial considerations, time commitments, and sometimes strenuous piece of work involved.
Every bit the first footstep in your beekeeping education, see our article well-nigh beekeeping as a hobby to consider if apiculture is for you. If yous desire to take the adjacent footstep, learn some beekeeping basics and starting time your education in earnest.
In that location are a lot of dandy educational resources available to apiculture newbies. Keep in mind that the information you find is likely to be a mixture of fact and opinion. Get input from a variety of sources and keep an open mind.
The all-time places to learn beekeeping are:
- Beekeeping books and classes are the best style to acquire outset beekeeping requirements and techniques. These books and courses organize information, so it is easier to follow.
- Beekeeping associations (check Bee Civilisation Magazine'due south Find A Local Beekeeper Directory for ideas.)
- Blogs, online forums, and YouTube channels.
Learn more than! See our article about apiculture education for beginners, including specific book recommendations, information on apiculture courses (including a Costless online video series), and other sources to increase your beekeeping noesis!
Y'all may have noticed that we had a step 9, "proceed your beekeeping education." Ever keep reading and learning. Beekeeping is not a "set it and forget it" hobby.
Find A Suitable Beehive Location
To start beekeeping, you need to have a suitable location for beehives.
You lot do non need a lot of acreage for a couple of beehives.
While access to nutrient sources is essential, those sources do not need to exist on your property. Dear bees travel meaning distances to provender. However, providing additional water nearby is beneficial at times of drought or high estrus.
Beehives are best situated facing due east/southeast, level from side to side, and near water sources, nectar, and pollen. In addition, they should be easily accessible with room to piece of work. Other considerations are afternoon shade, wintertime windbreaks, shielding from neighbors, expert airflow, and water drainage.
Notation: our directional information above is for the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the management would exist east or northeast.
The corporeality of infinite you 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 article most where to place your beehive for details regarding these recommendations, options to consider if your belongings is not suitable, ways to mitigate problems in smaller spaces, and more than.
We also suggest you run into our information below about beehives.
Figure Out Your Upkeep
Get-go beekeeping tin can be rather expensive. How much your offset year volition cost depends on the diverse choices you make.
Based on our recent surveys of reputable online suppliers, nosotros estimate your get-go year of beekeeping will cost nigh $725 to purchase one hive, your first bees, protective gear, basic tools, and miscellaneous supplies.
Your costs will vary based on your circumstances and some choices y'all brand.
Larn more than! Run into our article How Much Does It Price To Get-go Beekeeping? for detailed data on equipment you should get and the impact of your choices. And then, use the included calculator to gauge your get-go-year costs.
Unexpected expenses are discouraging to beginners. Our commodity tin can help you avoid unpleasant surprises.
Choose A Hive Blazon & Order Information technology
There are three master hive types to choose from:
- Langstroth hives,
- Warré hives, or
- A horizontal hive such as a Top Bar Hive, a Langstroth Long Hive, or a Layen's Hive.
The Langstroth hive is the most common in North America and what you probably recall of when you visualize a typical beehive.
We recommend that outset beekeepers starting time with Langstroth hives. They are the easiest hives to find suppliers and advice for.
Learn more! See our commodity for more details about the Langstroth hive and why we think information technology is the all-time hive type for beginning beekeepers. The article also provides information about other hive options. Also, cheque our list of best starter apiculture kits.
Order Your Honey Bees
You tin can purchase bees from reputable local beekeepers and online suppliers.
Bee suppliers usually take orders starting in December and Jan for the following jump. Suppliers have limited supplies and brand them available on or nearly specific dates.
Get your bees at the earliest date that fits your schedule. An early on offset for your hives helps your colony build up stores in time for winter. Having your colony survive winter may be the about critical step in your commencement yr of apiculture.
When buying honey bees, you have two primary choices to make: what "race" of bees to purchase and whether you want them in a "bee bundle" or a "nuc."
Dearest bees are classified by "race" based on their genetic history. Italian, Carniolan, Caucasian, and Russian bees are common types. There are too hybrid bees bred for specific traits similar Varroa resistance, such every bit Saskatraz.
Choosing a type of bee can be confusing for beginners. We recommend that y'all purchase your first bees from a local beekeeper, if available. Local bees are genetically adjusted to your local climate.
If yous cannot get local bees, Italian bees are an first-class choice for beginners. Italian bees are the most common in North America. They are widely available, prolific, and excellent foragers.
Learn more about the advantages and drawbacks of common bee races in our article What Type Of Beloved Bees To Purchase.
You can larn honey bees in two basic formats:
- A bee parcel is a box of almost 3 lbs. of bees (effectually 10,000 bees). The package includes a caged queen and a tin of sugar syrup to feed the bees in transit.
- A nuc (pronounces "newk") is a nucleus colony usually consisting of a minor hive box with v deep frames. The bees have been in the nuc for a while. The queen is accustomed, and the frames likely include drawn comb, brood, pollen, and nectar. See our commodity almost nucs for more than details.
Nucs are more expensive than packages but are easier to install in a hive.
Annotation: Nucs are generally available for Langstroth hives and can be hard to find for top bar hives.
Larn more! See Where To Purchase Bees for everything you lot demand to know about buying bees, including aircraft considerations, transporting bees locally, suggested suppliers, and packages vs. nucs.
Buy Beekeeping Tools
Beekeeping Tools
At that place are 3 "must-have" beekeeping tools for beginners:
- Bee smoker
- Hive tool
- Bee brush
A bee hive smoker helps bees during a hive inspection. Puffing absurd smoke on the bees to move out of your style, gorge on honey (which calms them), and disrupts alarm pheromones that may brand them more defensive.
Calmer, less defensive bees are easier to manage. Take a lit smoker on every inspection, and then yous have it if needed.
Learn more than! Come across our article about bee smokers, explaining how they work, how to light them, clean them, and more.
You lot may not need a smoker on each hive visit, but you will almost always demand a hive tool.
Hive tools are hand-held implements that serve many purposes. Hive tools separate and lift boxes or frames that are stuck together with propolis. A sharp edge scrapes off wax, propolis, or fifty-fifty a stinger lodged in your peel.
Learn more! See our article What Is A Hive Tool? for information about various hive tools and how to use them.
A bee brush volition motion some bees out of your way or brush them off a frame for inspection. (Our beekeeping instructor suggested we use a large turkey plume that is just as effective.)
Though we call the bee brush a "must-take" tool, nosotros rarely use it now; however, we recommend beginners get one.
As nosotros got more comfortable working with bees, nosotros learned to remove bees from frames with a good hard shake without being freaked out. I believe that as a beginning beekeeper, you lot will be more comfy with a castor.
Always brush frames with a gentle, upwards stroke.
Get Protective Beekeeping Clothing
I know there are videos online of beekeepers wearing little or no, protection. However, these are mostly very experienced beekeepers who have adapted to the stings. They also stay at-home and tend not to do things that volition crusade the bees to be overly defensive.
Equally a newbie beekeeper, you will probably be a footling anxious when you start handling bees. Therefore, wear protective gear when you start. And so, after, when you are more experienced, you can decide how careful yous want to be in this regard.
Protective wearable tin include:
- A veil to protect your eyes and face;
- Either a total bee conform or a bee jacket;
- Leather gloves; and,
- Boots.
As you gain confidence and become more comfortable with the bees, yous may opt to wear less protective equipment (though nosotros recommend you e'er wear a veil).
No matter what you do regarding protective gear, look to be stung.
Learn more than! Read our complete guide to beekeeping protective habiliment for more information about unlike options and what to look for when shopping.
Gear up Up Your Hive
Set upwardly your hive before your bees get in, especially if y'all go a bee parcel. You exercise non want your bees sitting around for days while you become things together.
Yous may take a picayune more latitude with a nuc, depending on how many frames the bees take filled. With only v frames in a nuc, they may be close to capacity, and you volition demand to give them more room speedily.
How much time yous need to gear up your hive depends on what you bought. Fully assembled and painted boxes along with assembled frames and foundation have lilliputian fourth dimension.
If, however, yous bought unassembled equipment, y'all need time to put it together.
Learn more! See our commodity well-nigh how to prepare upward a beehive your outset time.
Install Your Bees In A Hive
If you take followed our guide, you ordered your bees in plenty of fourth dimension to receive them in early bound, afterward you lot set upwards your hive.
How y'all put honey bees in the hive volition depend on whether you lot got a bee bundle or a nuc.
We recommend a nuc if it is inside your upkeep considering it is much simpler to install. Using your hive tool, lift the frames with the bees on them, and place them in your hive.
If any bees remain in the nuc, 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 become.
Installing a bee bundle is a bit more than complicated.
With a bee package, you lot put the caged queen in the hive get-go requite the colony a few days to have and gratis her.
One time the queen cage is in the hive, shake the box to get other bees into the hive.
Larn more than! Read How To Install Bees In A New Hive for a detailed explanation of what to practise when your colonies arrive.
Continue Your Beekeeping Education
With your honey bees in a hive, y'all are now officially a beekeeper. Just the goal is to be a successful beekeeper.
Go along up with your beekeeping instruction. Read more books, watch more videos, explore online information, and continue learning.
Manage Your Bee Colonies
As a apiculturist, your job is to manage and tend to your livestock, the honey bees.
Your primary goal as a beginning beekeeper should be to get your colonies through their start total year. Achieving that goal requires that you actively manage your hives.
Managing your dearest bees includes:
- Regular hive inspections to assess conditions such as:
- The status and health of the queen
- Population and space needs
- Capability of food stores
- Evidence of pests or affliction
- Colony's disposition
- Indications of swarming
- Cross combing
- Physical condition of hive components
- Taking steps to remediate bug noted during hive inspections;
- Calculation and removing boxes and frames as dictated by the colony's population and activities;
- Limiting the impact of robbing on your hives;
- Preparing your hives for winter;
- And eventually, harvesting beloved and other hive products.
Larn more! Run across 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 grooming is the primal to starting a lawn beekeeping hobby.
If yous follow the steps in this article, you will reduce the probability of unpleasant surprises that can be discouraging to outset beekeepers.
Get your bees through the first year and you will be able to enjoy your own, harvested honey before y'all know it!
Source: https://www.beekeepingfornewbies.com/how-to-start-beekeeping/
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