Just as every other hobby, raising honey bees needs some equipment before someone can establish a successful hive. This equipment should be bought before you get a call from the post office telling you to get you’re bees.

The first important equipment is the bee hive.

Your beehive should have five supers. The supers are a very important part of the beehive because they are where the bees will be storing their honey. These five supers should be located at the bottom of the bee hive and the hive cover. These supers are very important because they are where the bees will be storing their honey and raising their offspring. Once you have an active hive the supers will each contain 9 to 10 frames.

They are shallow supers or deep supers to choose from. One advantage of these deep supers is that they enable beekeepers to buy only one size foundation. The disadvantage is that, when full, a deep super can weigh over a hundred pounds. Once you have a hive for your bees make sure you place it somewhere that has a flat surface so that the hive will not fall over when winds blow. Also make sure that you place it somewhere that humans and pets aren’t likely to disturb it.

A spacer is a piece of equipment beekeepers use to keep an equal amount of space between the frames while they are in the super.

The next piece of equipment you will need is a smoker. The smoker is what you will use to make the bees leave their hive when you are getting ready to harvest the honey. The smoker is surprisingly simple in its design. The smoker consists of a funnel, a combustion chamber, and bellows. Many beekeepers claim that old, clean burlap is the best material to use in the smoker just because the burlap ignites easily and smolders and smokes. Dried corn cobs are also used by other beekeepers. Once the fire has been lit in the combustion chamber the bellows will keep it going. The funnel directs the smoke into the hive, encouraging the bees to leave.

Another tool you will need is a metal hive tool. The metal hive tool is used to open the hive, separate the hive bodies, and to scrape the frames clean. Think of it as the all purpose tool of beekeeping.

There is no beekeeper that is ready to receive their shipment of bees until they have a bee brush. A bee brush is used to gently brush bees out of the way so that the beekeeper can examine the frames.

When it is time to harvest your honey, you will need a fumer board. A fumer board is a board that is covered in bee removing chemicals and is then used to encourage the bees to leave a super and let you take their honeycombs.

If used bee equipment is alright with you, you can find some great prices on beekeeping equipment on EBay. There are several catalogs and websites that offer beekeeping equipment, and many of those offer beginners packages.