bee keeping reading and gathering equipment costs
Good start.
Youtube? Check out
Norfolk Honey Company and
Black Mountain Honey, both straightforward sources of practical beekeeping. Avoid watching methods from far-away places such as Texas, which will have little relevance to UK beekeeping.
Best beginner book is the
Haynes Bee Manual.
Have you handled bees? If not, do so before making any other decision. You may like the idea but the reality may make you walk away. Consider paying to attend a beginer beekeeping course at your local Beekeeping Association. Membership will gain you automatic beekeeping PLI of £10m.
Beware buying cheap kit unless you're really skint. Saving a fiver here and there is a waste of money: buy the best beesuit, smoker, hive tool and hives that you can.
For example, a suit could cost you
£9.99 at Simon the Beekeeper or
£189.99 at BBWear. The STB will probably have been made down to a price in Pakistan and repairs and new hoods are unlikely to be available. Bear in mind that cheap zips are unreliable, cheap hoods collapse and thicker suits are uncomfortable.
At the other end of the scale the BBWear is the best you can buy, is lightweight, will last you fifteen years and more, is made in the UK and you can send it back for repairs or buy a new hood.
Cedar or poly? English cedar has knots but is perfectly good and cheaper than knot-free Western red cedar. Both are the most thermally-efficient wood, so best avoid heavier ply and pine. Unless you're wood-savvy and have tools, buy assembled hives, at least for the first couple, so you can copy the correct layout for flat-pack if you wish.
Poly is the most thermally-efficient hive material and will last 40 years. Make sure to buy one with a standard 460 x 460mm National footprint, to allow compatibility with wood should you pick up wood boxes on your travels.
Most poly makers have variable footprints; avoid locking yourself into a unique model by using
Abelo, which matches wood National in all respects, is assembled and painted and ready to go.
Nuc boxes: buy at least one for each of the two hives you run:
BS are the best and
Maisemore up there with them. Paint boxes with masonry or gloss paint.
Frames are best bought as seconds; you won't really notice the difference between them and the more expensive firsts. For example,
Maisemore DN4 seconds are 0.61p/frame + delivery while
Maisemore firsts are £1.68/frame + delivery.
Best wax in the UK is either made by your own bees - that is to say, you go foundationless after a while - or as foundation from
KBS in Sussex. Other suppliers are variable and you must decide whether cheaper and perhaps impure foundation is a road down which you wish to travel.
Dadant is an expensive smoker but will last a lifetime and stay alight when cheapies go out. You may pick up a poor copy on eBay that will do a similar job, but whichever you buy, avoid those with a small firebox.
Hive tool? Stainless are variable and the best are those with a thin blade. A lot of both cheap and expensive tools are made in China, and sometimes the cheap are better than the other! Best I've found is from Jero, a Portugese knife manufacturer, but no longer available in the UK since Park Beekeeping closed last year.
Concentrate your efforts on a conventional hive
Sound advice: forget the obs. hive until you have more experience: it will take you a minimum of 2-3 seasons to be remotely competent.
What is on your shopping list so far?
This coming month it is about selling.
