To work with bees, compulsory safety precautions are required. Equipment and the right tools will help you avoid bites and injuries. Mandatory equipment for beekeeping includes:

  • hives and frames;
  • equipment for working with bees;
  • tools for building frames;
  • equipment for processing wax;
  • carpentry tools, scales, carts, etc.

You can buy beekeeper's inventory at any specialized store or order via the Internet.

Important! It is necessary to maintain the cleanliness and functionality of the apiary equipment regularly. Dirty tools or broken objects can lead to accidents in the apiary.

A must-have tool kit

The first necessity when working with bees is the smoker. This device allows you to pacify the bee swarm when examining families.

To expand the frames in the hives, you will need an apiary chisel. It will be necessary both for cleaning the frames and the inner walls of the hive from wax deposits and propolis. Its appearance is a metal plate 20 cm long, 2.5 cm wide with a 90 ° bend on one side.

Hand tools for beekeeping include knives and forks for unsealing honeycombs. The lids on the honeycomb are cut with knives. For uneven printing in hard-to-reach places, a fork is required. These tools will come in handy during the filling phase of the honey extractor.

Beekeeping equipment

The swarm is a hive for temporary placement and maintenance of the swarm. A honey extractor will be an expensive purchase that facilitates the manual labor of collecting honey. However, such a device will significantly reduce the time and labor costs for collecting a quality product from frames with honeycombs.

The horsehair brush is useful for sweeping the bees while removing the frames after using the smoker. Feeders with sweetened syrup should be installed during times of famine to recharge the bee colonies.

The wire will provide additional stability to the honeycomb while strengthening the foundation. It can be effectively fixed using a spur roller, which must be warmed up immediately before use.

Swarm

The most important element in the apiary is the cart. The opening top is necessary for storing wooden boxes intended for pumping honey out of full hives.

As equipment, you should choose an apron, overalls or a suit with oversleeves.

Note! Light shades are less irritating to bees.

The front mesh should be with elastic at the bottom. This style, tight to the neck, will protect the face from bites.

How to make do-it-yourself beekeeping equipment

Beekeeping products

Many items necessary for a beekeeper are very expensive. However, you can collect bee stock with your own hands. With some skills and technical tools, you can make tools similar to factory production.

First of all, this applies to hives, feeders and frames. You can independently invent a device that has no analogues on the market. Such inventions meet the individual needs of the beekeeper.

By reducing the energy consumption of bees for building honeycombs, you can get a larger honey harvest. For these purposes, foundation is used. To create a frame with artificial honeycombs you will need:

  • a set of carpentry tools;
  • assemble the frame of the frame;
  • mark future holes with a template and drill them;
  • passing a tinned wire through the holes, pull the threads in parallel;
  • press the wire into the foundation using a spur;
  • install the finished frame in the hive.

Homemade knives in an apiary can be collected from an old scythe or a hacksaw blade. Having measured a piece on the canvas to create a handle, heat and bend it similarly to industrial tools. Grind off the existing teeth on the canvas with an emery stone. The handle can be made from a PVC pipe with a diameter of 10 mm. You can choose wood as the material of the handle, but this is less ergonomic.

Note! The resulting knife will not get stuck in honey and will not crush the honeycomb cells.

The second option for making an apiary knife is the assembly process from the scythe blade. This blade requires a zigzag bar to be soldered onto the sharp end of which a handle can be attached.

Instead of buying an electric knife for an apiary, you can assemble such a device yourself. From the blade of the old braid, you need to make a blank of 150 * 50 mm. At one end of it, a couple of holes should be drilled in which rivets for attaching the electric soldering iron rod will be installed. Bend the rod of the soldering iron, getting two elbows and blunt the end, drilling holes for the rivets. Collect the resulting blanks and fasten with rivets.

Important! In order to avoid overheating of the device during the breaks of pumping honey in the honey extractor, it must be lowered into a bowl of water, completely covering the blade.

Instead of buying a sprayer, you can assemble it from a siphon used to make soda water. After placing a suitable tube on the tip, install a plug with holes spaced 50 mm apart. Fasten the nipple from the bicycle on the back side to pump air into the siphon. The volume of the resulting container contains about 2 liters of syrup necessary for transplanting new queens, pouring additional fertilizers into the honeycomb and processing honey frames with sugared food.

You can also save money by building a beekeeper attachment such as a honey extractor from a plastic barrel or washing machine. To collect such structures, no special tools are required, but the resulting device will help save time for pumping honey.

Electric honey extractor

Electric knives and other devices

Frame for beehives

Despite the abundance of knives presented, even sharpened blades can crush and damage the combs. To cut the bee bar, you need a regular steel knife. To facilitate the printing process, you should regularly dip it in hot water. Electric knives for beekeepers do not need such events.

Electric knives are called beekeeper tools that resemble ordinary knives in appearance, but powered from the mains or from rechargeable batteries. Such items facilitate the process of unsealing the honeycomb lids. Their advantage is that the blade is constantly heated, so there is no need to dip the knife into boiling water. In addition, the absence of water on the blade allows for the concentrated taste of honey.

Electric knives

In addition to knives, there are machines with a drive for printing honeycomb frames, which can be manual or mechanical. Hand-held machines are popular for their precise process control. The machine is required for large apiaries and large volumes of material. The principle of operation consists in fixing the frame with honeycombs in a movable carriage. The knife element, rolling, unseals the honeycomb on one side, repeating the procedure on the other.

Beekeeper set

It is difficult for a beginner beekeeper to immediately navigate the variety of equipment for an apiary. There is a basic set of beekeeping equipment that you definitely cannot do without. Such kits are available commercially.

How to pump honey

A typical starter kit includes:

  • box hives;
  • stand for hives;
  • frames for honeycombs;
  • apiary chisel;
  • horsehair bristle brush;
  • smoker;
  • a skating rink and a pattern for waxing;
  • foundation;
  • wire;
  • overalls, gloves;
  • drinker and feeder for bees;
  • knife and fork for printing;
  • filter for honey;
  • swarm.

Note! The purchase of such a kit will eliminate the need to spend time looking for items that are necessary at first.

In conclusion, we can say that well-chosen beekeeping equipment and equipment will greatly facilitate the process of collecting and processing honey. To meet individual needs, some of the items can be made independently, having received exclusive parts that compete in quality with the factory ones.