Equipment
- At minimum, the following equipment will be necessary:
- a hive tool
- a bee suit
- a smoker
- (probably) some gloves (depending on your confidence)
- Plan for swarm control. Aim to have N+2 of everything, so that if you need to make splits of manipulations, you can do so at the drop of a hat. eg. if you plan to have 2 hives, buy 4 hives bodies
- Cedar hive bodies are naturally rot resistant and don’t need treating
- Pine hive bodies need to be painted or treating to prevent rot
- a gas torch or large jet lighter is a good purchase. Lighting a smoker with a regular lighter takes far longer.
- a little pen flashlight will come in handy at all stages in your career as a beek. When you’ve been holding up frames to the sun for 20 minutes and your arms are dead, think of this post.
- 2:1 or 1:1 sugar-to-water syrups can be measured by weight or volume. It doesn’t matter, but most use weight. 1L of water weighs 1kg.
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