Sunday, April 17, 2011

Your Guide to Beekeeping Equipment

By Amanda Gamdana


If you have been perusing the idea of keeping bees as a hobby, this article is just right for you! They must be ready before your bees arrive at the doorstep. The most important piece of equipment you need is the beehive.

Your beehive should have five supers. These supers are vital parts of your beehive because this is the area where the honey will be stored. The supers must be arranged so that the bottom of the beehive is below them and the cover is atop them. Apart from storing the honey, bees use these supers for raising their young ones too.

When the hive starts buzzing with activity, each of these frames will show nine to ten frames. You can opt for a shallow super or for a deep super. With deep supers, you can make your foundation size uniform. A buzzing hive with a deep super can go up to a hundred pounds in weight.

Take precaution to place your beehive on a level surface; otherwise there is the risk of the entire unit toppling over in a strong gust of wind. Arrange your beehive in a place that will be undisturbed by people or pets. Get a spacer to manage equal spaces between the frames for the time they are in the super.

The next device you will need is a smoker. The smoker helps you to get the bees out of the hive whenever you want to get the honey from it. The design of the smoker is actually quite minimal. The basic design of the smoker includes a combustion chamber along with a funnel and bellows. You can ideally use burlap in the smoker for the ignition because it lights up quite fast and it smolders a lot, producing thick dense fumes. You may also plan on using corn cobs, provided they are dried out. When you start the fire in the combustion chamber, the bellows will ensure that it does not die out, and you can use the funnel to get the smoke into the hive.

The next piece of equipment to use is the metal hive tool. Your metal hive tool will come in handy when you have to pry the hive open, separate the compartments of the hive and for its cleanliness. The metal hive tool can really do a lot of thing in beekeeping for you. If you haven't got a bee brush yet, don't think of getting your bees. The use of the bee brush is to remove the bees from the way when the frames need to be examined.

When it is time to harvest your honey, you will need a fumer board. When you want to remove their honeycombs, you will have to remove the bees first. You can use them, if you don't mind buying pre owned material. You get beekeeping material from several websites too, and you can even get stuff designed for amateurs.




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