A Beginner’s Guide to Beekeeping

By: Kristine Kivisto

A quick-start manual to help the novice beekeeper understand purchasing hive equipment, bringing bees home, and basic apiary care.

With hobbyist beekeeping on the rise in America, you’re not alone if the thought of having a backyard beehive has piqued your interest. As with any new hobby, there is a learning curve for getting started. This quick guide is a brief overview of the time and monetary investments that are required to begin beekeeping, along with some instructions for basic hive care. We will review:

1.      Where to Purchase Bees and Beekeeping Supplies

2.     The Cost of Getting Started

3.     Which Bee Species to Purchase

4.     What Equipment to Purchase

5.     How to Install a Package of Bees

6.     How Often to Inspect the Hive & What to Look For

7.     Money-Saving Tips

8.     Additional Resources

9.     Not Ready for Bees? You Can Still Help Them Thrive

Starting a backyard apiary is one of the best ways to connect with nature and appreciate the delicate intricacies of our ecosystem. Don’t be afraid to give it a whirl, you’ll be glad you stepped out of your comfort zone and into the tiny world of the honeybee.

Where to Purchase Bees and Beekeeping Supplies

When it comes to purchasing bees and beekeeping supplies, there are typically two routes: national distributor or local beekeeping supplier. If you wish to support your local beekeeping supplier, your best bet is to hop on over to your favorite search engine such as Google or Bing and type in “beekeeping supplies near me” or you can substitute the word me for your local town.

I have purchased most of my beekeeping supplies through my local outfitter, which happens to be located about an hour from my house. When you purchase from a local supplier, you are getting more than just bees and supplies. I get the face-to-face interaction with the owners and other customers who are beekeepers in the area. We can compare successes and issues we are having with our hives, and it never fails that we end up comparing pictures on our phones of what our hives are up to.

I’ve had many questions answered that I wouldn’t have easily found on the internet just by popping in to pick up some hive tools or honey extraction supplies. My local bee supplier also offers classes several times per year, often at no cost, which is another great way to stay up to date on the latest techniques and local bee news.

However if you don’t have a local bee supplier in your area, have to fear. There are many great national brands that ship all over the United States. I’ve used several, and have been satisfied with all of them. Each one has a customer service department that is willing to answer any questions you have, and most have super insightful blogs about getting started and keeping bees. If you need supplies shipped to your house, check out:

· Dadant and Sons

· Mann Lake Ltd.

· Miller Bee Supply

· Betterbee

· Blue Sky Bee Supply

The Cost of Getting Started

If you’ve already looked into a bee supplier, you may have a grasp as to the cost of starting your own backyard apiary. Costs vary depending on the supplier, shipping rates, and the quantity purchased. As a general rule, you’ll be looking at costs somewhere in the range of:

· Hive: $150–250 per hive, depending on size and if you purchase assembled or unassembled

· Gear: $50–200 depending on buying new or used

· Package of bees: $125 depending on species, supplier, and shipping costs

Beekeeping is often a trial-and-error method, and sometimes what works with one hive doesn’t work for another. For that reason and to increase your odds of your bees surviving the winter, it’s best to get at least two hives for your apiary. You can always add more, but at a minimum you should have two so you can compare the health of the hives to each other.

Which Bee Species to Purchase

There are many types of bee species, but as a beginner beekeeper you will want one that has been bred for good honey production while also being quite docile. It’s important to remember that all honeybees will sting when they feel threatened, however some species are more prone to anger than others.

As a beginner, I recommend that you start with Italian Honeybees. They are the perfect mix of hard-working yet gentle. Italian honeybees are the most popular species for commercial and hobbyist beekeepers, so whichever bee supplier you purchase from will most likely have Italians available.

Italian honeybees aren’t as hardy for overwintering as some of the more aggressive types, but as long as you properly winterize your hive they should have a decent chance of surviving until spring.

What Equipment to Purchase

Buying your equipment is the largest investment that you will make in your beekeeping endeavor. It is important to purchase new hives and hive pieces, though you can often find secondhand hive accessories through Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or local ads.

Most beginner beekeepers will utilize a Langstroth hive. These hives are made of stackable boxes that are easy to manipulate when you need to check on your colony.

As a rule of thumb, you will want new items for anything that the bees are going to be living in, crawling on, and regularly touching. Hive equipment that housed a previous colony could be infected with disease, and you don’t want to risk spreading that to your new colony. As a starting point, you will need the following hive equipment:

· Hive base

· Bottom board

· 3–5 medium supers per hive (You can also substitute for 1 large super plus 2–3 medium supers.)

· Frames — Most Langstroth hives come in 8 or 10 frames per super

· Inner & outer covers

· Entrance reducer

· Feeder system

· Queen excluder (optional but very helpful for beginners)

Beekeeping accessories can be purchased new or secondhand, since the bees won’t be storing honey and pollen on these items. There are dozens of accessories, but I recommend the following tools when you are getting started:

· Smoker

· Hive tool

· Veil (full bee suit is optional, you can just wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt)

· Leather gloves

That is all the equipment you need to get started keeping bees. As you grow in the hobby, you’ll find other tools that are also helpful such as a bee brush, extraction supplies, medication, frame holder, and more. But if you’re looking to get started on a budget, don’t go overboard with purchasing every single supply your bee outfitter has in stock. You can always add to your collection as the years go on.

How to Install a Package of Bees

You’ve purchased your equipment, ordered your bees, and the big day has arrived where you pick them up at a local store or post office. (Yes, the USPS ships bees, but you usually have to go to your local post office to get the package.) It’s officially spring in a beekeeper’s world!

I highly recommend watching some videos on YouTube for tips on how to install bees into your hive. It’s a very easy process, and the bees will be pretty docile. Watching someone else install a package will greatly increase your confidence in how to handle the bees.

Here is a wonderful tutorial from New Bee University on how to install bees using both the “no shake” and the “shake” methods. I have always preferred and had greater success with the “shake” method.

Make sure the weather is pleasant and plan for a mid-morning install. This will help keep the bees happy in their new home and minimize the risk of them abandoning the hive. You certainly don’t want to lose your bees before you even get a chance to take care of them!

If the weather is poor or you are tied up with other tasks, the bees will be fine in their package for a day or two. Just keep them in a cool, dark, dry place and mist the package with a 2:1 sugar water mixture every few hours during the day.

You do not need smoke when installing a package of bees. In fact, smoking them during an install can disorient them and cause them to abandon the hive. All you need is to spray them with sugar water, then work quickly to get them into their new home.

There are several ways to install the bees, but the easiest way is to secure the queen cage on a middle frame with a rubber band. Make sure to remove the cork from her cage so the worker bees can eat through the candy plug to release her in a couple of days.

After the queen cage is secured, you shake the rest of the bees out of the package into the super. The pile of bees will work their way down into the frames within a couple of minutes. Place the package near the entrance of the hive so any remaining bees can find their way in.

Close up the hive, add an entrance reducer to the hive opening, and give the bees some sugar water so they can start building honeycomb.

If you install your bees early in the spring before many flowers have bloomed, it is important to keep the feeder full. A new colony of bees that is lacking plants to forage from can go through 8 ounces of sugar water in a day. Once the spring plants bloom, you can remove the feeder.

How Often to Inspect the Hive & What to Look For

You’ve installed your bees, they are happily foraging for pollen and nectar, and you’ve been enjoying all the activity at the hive entrance for a couple of weeks. Now what? It’s time to open the hive and check on your bees.

The first thing to do is light your smoker. Make sure you have extra tinder and a lighter near the beehive, because as any experienced beekeeper will tell you, there’s nothing worse than having your smoker go out during a hive check and not being able to quickly re-light it. You want the smoke to be dense and cool, so stay away from creating an inferno in your smoker.

Put on your veil and gloves, and give a few strong puffs of smoke near the lower and upper entrances. Use your hive tool to gently pry the outer and inner lids off.

You can place the covers on the ground near your hive, but you’ll first want to look for the queen as you don’t want her to fall off the lids and get lost in the grass. The queen is much larger than the worker bees and drones, but you’ll still need a keen eye to spot her. She is often surrounded by her attendants, and can usually be found in the lower section of the hive laying eggs in the brood cells. But don’t be complacent, as she can and often does go anywhere in the hive, including the top covers.

When you open a hive, the purpose is just a quick peek to check on the progress of the bees and to look for any signs of disease. A hive check should only take two to five minutes. The quicker you can be in and out, the less stressful it is on the bees.

Don’t spend too much time searching for the queen. A quick way to make sure she is active and still ruling the hive is to look for capped brood cells. This means she is laying eggs. If there isn’t any brood and you can’t find the queen, you will need to order another one. Act fast as a beehive cannot survive without a queen.

You’ll also want to look for pollen and nectar in the honeycomb cells. A colony of bees typically keeps the brood near the bottom, with the pollen above the brood cells, and the honey kept above the pollen. A well-structured frame often looks like a tri-colored rainbow of brood, pollen, and honey.

Keep an eye out for any signs of disease and pests. This includes ants swarming the top of the hive, mouse nests under the bottom board, mites which can be found on the backs of the bees or on the bottom hive board, and any white or powdery substances that signify a fungal infection. If you see any signs of distress in the hive, seek mitigation tactics immediately as diseases can overtake a hive very quickly.

As a general rule, beginner beekeepers should be checking their hive every two weeks during the active season. Once you’re more comfortable reading your bees and hive language from observing the entrance and behavior of your bees, you’ll only have to check every 3–4 weeks during the active season.

Money-Saving Tips

Since beekeeping will require a significant monetary investment, be on the lookout for ways to save money. Beekeepers are resourceful people, don’t hesitate to strategize and use items around your house to keep your costs down.

When you purchase your hives, you can buy them fully assembled and painted, just assembled but not painted, or completely unassembled. The less assembly your bee supplier performs, the less the hives will cost.

You can also string your own frames. Often you can buy these fully intact, but don’t hesitate to experiment with stringing your own and hanging the starter comb.

Don’t spend money on a bee suit if you don’t have to. I have never used a bee suit, I prefer to wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Just remember, bees will attack darker colors when provoked so you’ll want to stick to gray, white, and lighter colors if possible.

You also don’t need fancy bee gloves. Any pair of leather work gloves will do, just make sure they tighten around your wrists, or use a ponytail or rubber band to keep them secure around your shirt.

I do recommend a good veil. If there is one area not to skimp on, it’s your beekeeping veil.

You can purchase an entrance reducer, or save a few dollars and whittle your own out of a small piece of wood. The purpose of an entrance reducer is to make the hive opening smaller so it’s easier for a new colony to defend.

You can see there are ways to keep your costs as low as possible. Join a local beekeepers guild, or find a friendly group on Facebook. They will often share additional tips and tricks for backyard beekeeping.

Additional Resources

There are countless resources out there for you to gain additional knowledge on starting beekeeping. I have had great success watching YouTube videos to learn about different beekeeping techniques and studying new skills during a hive manipulation.

And don’t forget about good, old-fashioned reading! There are many great books and magazines that have a wealth of knowledge for beekeepers.

Bee Culture magazine is a wonderful monthly release that is curated for the beekeeping and hive tasks that you need to be tackling every month. Bee Culture also writes about supplier recommendations, honey and bee product prices, intriguing stories centered around the beekeeping community, and more. You won’t be disappointed if you decide to subscribe to Bee Culture.

There are many books on beekeeping, enough that you could fill your own bookshelf. But for a beginner beekeeper, some great starting reads are:

· The Backyard Beekeeper by Kim Flottum. (Kim was the editor of Bee Culture for 30 years, so he knows his stuff!)

· The Beekeeper’s Handbook by Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile.

· The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture by A.I. Root. (This is an encyclopedia dedicated solely to bee-related information. If you need to know something, it will be found in this book!)

· The Beekeeper’s Lament by Hannah Nordhaus. (A memoir about a commercial beekeeper — this book will open your eyes to the great, big world of profit-driven beekeeping. A recommended read even if you don’t have a beehive.)

Not Ready for Bees? You Can Still Help Them Thrive!

Deciding to purchase bees is not a task to be taken lightly and there is no shame in realizing that caring for these delicate, little creatures isn’t for you. Even if you don’t have a beehive in your backyard, there are still plenty of ways for you to contribute to the health and wellness of bees, while also supporting your local beekeepers.

· Plant bee-friendly flowers! Bees aren’t too picky, and will gladly pollinate almost anything. A few of the bee’s favorites are lilacs, lavender, sunflowers, snapdragons, coneflowers, chives, bee balm, zinnias, and asters.

· Plant various flowers that bloom during different seasons. Give the bees a chance to forage in your garden from early spring through fall.

· Reduce pesticides on your flowering plants.

· Don’t be so quick to kill the dandelions! I know these weeds are often seen as unsightly, but oftentimes they are a bee’s first chance at natural foraging during the spring. Even if you leave just a little patch of dandelions blooming in the corner of your yard, the local honeybees will thank you.

· Keep a water source nearby. Bees need to drink water, and if you don’t have a natural water source nearby you can consider leaving out a birdbath for the bees to enjoy. Don’t make it too deep — in fact, you can make the water more accessible by adding rocks or marbles to the dish so the bees can stand on them and drink easier.

· Buy local honey and bee products. Head to your local farmer’s market and I can guarantee there will be at least one booth set up featuring a local beekeeper. Not only will you be supporting a small business, but the products you get from a farmer’s market will be far superior to anything you’ll find in a grocery store.

Conclusion

Beekeeping is a wonderful hobby that opens the door to a tiny world filled with intricacies and miracles of nature. You don’t have to be an expert or have a wealth of knowledge to start — you just need some motivation, a bit of confidence, and a few basic tips on how to begin. It’s a rewarding hobby, one that will stay with you long after you close up your hives to wait for the next inspection.

And also, you’ll get about 60,000 little friends for every hive you have — so what are you waiting for? Go pick up your bees and welcome them home!