Beekeeping for Free ... ish

How can be a beekeeper when it costs so much money even if I buy stuff second hand ?

It doesn’t need to cost much there are alternatives .

You can catch bees for free .

You can build your own hive

Just buy a veil and gloves

Crush and strain instead of centrifuge use stuff from your kitchen .

Catching bees for free

Bees swarm its natural they do it all the time either wild or feral hives or despite conventional beekeepers best efforts . So if you set up a “bait box “ or even just build a hive there maybe a good chance that bees will just turn up . Sounds unbelievible but its true . Something nice smalling ...oki nice smelling to bees will help .

here is a video of just that

Building your own hive

There are quite a few types of hive from all over the world that are quite easy to build even for those places that legally limit the types of hive you can have . Bizarrely that are parts of the USA where its easier to own an assult rifle than build your own hive  so check out local regulations although who enfoces these rules on wild or feral hives I have no idea .

Skeps

A nice introduction to skeps

Kenyan Hives

Very popular maybe the most simple to make

augustcottageapiary.wordpress.com/…

Warré hive

This is my favourate , very easy to build , easy to manage

Just buy a veil and gloves

I bought a hat at the charity shop  £7.50 ,a veil for £10, and Gloves for £15. Do you need a full suit or armour , nope . Bee Stings are not as deep nor as sharp as wasps and hornets and think canvas or tweed etc will defeat their attempts to sting you or even two pairs of socks.

Crush and strain

You can spend literally thousands and thousands on kit to extract every last cubic mm from honey comb . I use a fork and mash up the comb and let to drip through a sieve .