I am planning to start beekeeping soon and would really appreciate guidance from experienced beekeepers here. Since I am completely new to this, I am trying to understand the basics and make informed choices before I get started.
I would love your suggestions on most popular and beginner-friendly beehives, hive designs and specifications, essential beekeeping tools and equipment that beginners should invest in, reliable supplier, beginner-friendly resources, books, online courses, or YouTube channels that you think are especially helpful.
I’d be grateful for any guidance, insights, or recommendations.
Congratulations on wanting to learn about before you get them. You’ll have a better success rate than if you jumped in feet first.
My suggestion for beginners is always to join a local club, do their beginning in bees course, dive into the club hives under guidance at every opportunity, then get your own bees. You’ll probably have access to bees from the club or other members. Locally adapted bees are better than shipping them in from elsewhere.
There are commercially run courses you could do as well, but most will happen next spring. I’m not sure how far you are from Hilliary Kierney of Girl Next Door Honey. I’ve only met her once, and find Hilliary is an excellent teacher and beekeeper. She runs several courses. https://girlnextdoorhoney.com
I agree with Mike, joining a bee club is the best way to find out what is the go in your area and to meet people that love bees and want to help. I read everything in the flow forum and anything else I could get my hands on, I also watched just about every YouTube video there is, some that were not helpful and bad practices but they showed me what not to do. I watch Flows live Q and A every week, they do go over a lot of the same content but I still like to watch and it is for beginners so no question is a dumb question. As for type of hive I can only say what I got as this is still very new to me and I have loads of help from my bee club members.
I purchased 2 of the flow 2+ 7 (10 brood frames) with ant guards, a smoker, suit and gloves. I got the 7 because my research told me it would be good for the bees to have stores for winter, we do occasionally get snow here. I got 2 hives so I could split the following spring, our winter is still going today and it is the beginning of summer, they swarmed before I got to them….. lesson learnt. After I bought the hives I realised during inspections I would have to lift the super full of honey off and thought what have I done, but thank Cedar for inventing the lifter before I have had to actually do that and I will just say that that lifter is a brilliant contraption, I have used it 3 times, it is the best!
Linda