Equipment Required to Run a Beekeeping Business

As for any venture, the beekeeping business requires some basic equipment before you can expect to begin making money from your enterprise. Most important of all, your basic beekeeping equipment should be in place before you ever consider picking up bees to populate your hives.

The beekeeper's most important piece of equipment is the hive, or hives if you are contemplating running a large scale beekeeping business.

The hive requires what are called 'supers', being layers that lie horizontally down the inside of the hive, between the bottom and the hive cover. There are usually five supers in the traditional hive, each of which will contain up to nine to ten frames and this is where bees store honey for feeding their offspring.

Supers can be of varying depths within the hive, from shallow to very deep. The benefit of deep supers is one of enabling the beekeeper to use just one size foundation. The main disadvantage of deep supers in the beehive is that when full they can be exceedingly heavy and difficult to move around.

When you have your beehive, locate it on a flat surface, so it won't fall over in a strong wind. Preferably place it away from pets and humans who might disturb the bees and make them angry and possibly cause them to sting intruders.

The beekeeper's next most important piece of equipment is a smoker, which is a device for emitting light puffs of smoke that help calm the bees as well as enticing them to leave the hive for fresh air while you harvest the honey. The smoker comprises a funnel, a combustion chamber, and bellows. Various materials are used to create the smoke, ranging from burlap which is easy to ignite, to dried corn cobs which some beekeepers prefer. There are other materials besides that can be ignited to create smoke as any 'how to' beekeeping book will reveal.

Once the fire has started in the combustion chamber the beekeeper uses the bellows to keep the smoke going, and the funnel to direct the smoke into the hive to encourage the bees to leave.

Another important piece of equipment is a metal hive tool which is used to pry open the hive and scrape dirt and debris from the frames.

Last but not least, the beekeeper requires a bee brush to coax bees out of the way so the frames and inside of the hive can be examined without angering the bees and causing them to sting the keeper.

Then when it's time to harvest the honey, the beekeeper finds a fumer board very helpful. The fumer board is a board covered in chemicals that don't hurt the bees but rather causes them to leave the super and enable the keeper to remove the honeycombs without being hurt by the bees.

All of this equipment can be purchased second hand from beekeeping associations, also on eBay, and you'll find equipment for beginners sufficient to start your beekeeping business and generate your first honey harvest.