What additional beekeeping supplies do you really need?

One of the many challenges of beekeeping is determining what extra beekeeping supplies you need to be ready for when your bees decide to do something you had not planned for.

I am drawing upon my first years of beekeeping in writing this article.

Lesson 1

I recall going out to my hive and seeing my hive jammed pack of bees with no place for the queen to lay her brood.  I had not learned the nectar flows in my area at the time.  I placed an order for two medium honey supers, by the time they arrived the bees had swarmed…  There are two morals to this story:  (1) I must be ready to have extra supers with frames and foundation ready to go on the hive.  (2) I needed to strike the queen cells that were present in the hive.   I have also found that I can never have enough honey supers!  Ultimately, you are going to need a total of 3 or 4 additional supers as your colony grows into the second and third year.

Lesson 2

While we are talking about swarms, it is good to be ready for that phone call from a friend stating they have a HUGE swarm in their backyard.  This will require an extra deep hive body with frames, foundation, bottom board, inner cover, and outer cover.  Having this as a back-up, will also help you if you want to split a hive and you will be ready for this split.  If you are going out to capture a swarm, you will want to bring a beekeeping outfit, limb cutter, ladder, and a smoker.  I have found if you have these ready to go you will catch more swarms before they fly higher in the trees.

Lesson 3

I needed to split a hive rather quickly and I went to get my extra hive body and I forgot to paint it so I had no choice but to place the new colony in a unpainted hive.  Well, that day soon became weeks and I just never got it painted.  In six months, the hive was starting to show cupping at the corners of the hive.  Fast forward, in 12 months, the bees were coming and going thru the sever cupping at the corners of the hive.  The cupping also allowed other insects to get in the hive which was not good.  Moral of the story: Have your extra hive body painted and ready to go. 

Lesson 4

I was inspecting a hive and saw a beautiful pattern of pollen collected in a frame.  It was so beautiful that I decided to bring it to my local beekeeping association for everyone to see the many colors of pollen.  I returned in 5 days to find the colony had already half a frame of natural comb in the position the frame should be in.  I extracted the natural comb and saw all brood had been laid in the new comb.  By having to take this new comb out it set back the growth of the colony.  It was also a trick to get the queen off that comb during the extraction.  The moral of this story is to have extra frames and foundation ready to go so that you do not hamper the colony growth and create a mess within the hive.