Equipment Episodes

It's Not What You Think!

One of the first pieces of equipment a new beekeeper buys is a bee suit. If they don’t buy a bee suit, they will at least buy a veil. Stings on the face are not only painful (and memorable to all who see it), they can be dangerous if it is directly...

Moving boxes full of honey is usually a lot of work. The bees aren’t happy, the boxes are heavy, it’s hot and you have all your gear on to be safe. The one sure way to make this easier is to use devices that have wheels. Two-wheelers, carts, your...

Harvesting your honey crop isn’t about keeping bees, in fact, it is hard work. It’s when you start questioning your spring decision to expand your number of colonies. On the other hand, it’s a good measure of how well you kept bees during the...

So, what’s that thing you put between two supers to give additional space between top bars below and bottom bars above so there’s room for…something you want to add to the hive. Is it a spacer, a rim, or what? Kim has always called it a...

Towards the end of the season, it’s a good idea to take a look at the equipment and other management tricks you’ve been using all summer while it’s still fresh in your mind. Today, Jim and Kim talk about how well the veils they use worked this...

Have you ever thought much about the hive stands you use? On today’s episode, Jim and Kim take a long look at the hive stands they use and why they favor them. They also look at a lot of other choices available to beekeepers – all based upon...

On today’s episode, Jim and Jeff Ott (from Beekeeping Today Podcast), discuss the value and use of the ‘love it or hate it” piece of equipment, the Queen Excluder. Queen excluders are included in almost every “Honey Producer Starter...

So, what do you do with your old wax? For some of us, as little as possible, but for others, there’s money to be made. There are different kinds of wax based on a couple of factors, including how long it was in the hive and how it was used by the...

What can you do with all that old beekeeping equipment you don’t need, don’t want and is in the way most of the time? There are several ways to look at this, and the first way, of course, is to simply trash it, burn it, bury it. That works, but...

Managing large observation hives is very different than working with those small observation hives that you can take to a school or county fair. Very different indeed. Especially if you are going to keep this hive in your home or classroom. To begin,...

Small, portable, usually single frame observation hives are ideal for meetings, demonstrations, lectures and even for study. They can be homemade or produced by bee supply companies, but there are a few things to keep in mind when using them…....

Can You Put New Swarms on Old Comb? You’ve caught your first swarm. Where should it go? You don’t have any new equipment to put it on, but you have an overwintered colony that didn’t make it. Can you use the combs from that colony? Always the...