Beekeeping Starter Kit Review – The all in one kit

Product: Beehive Starter Kit

Cheapest Place to Buy: Amazon

My Rating: 4.9/ 5

If you’ve considered becoming a beekeeper, you may be asking yourself “Where do I buy everything I need?” Every beekeeper will give you several ideas. However, what is the best beekeeping starter kit?

It would be nice to have everything in one kit to make your first year of beekeeping easier.

What are some items included in this kit?

This is quite a list! It really is all-inclusive. So here we go!

Gloves: which automatically come in a large size.

A Smoker with pellets: This is helpful to calm the bees. Personal preference on when to smoke the bees, of course.

An entrance reducer: This is useful for during the fall to avoid raiding from other insects.

A hat and veil: To keep the bees away from your face. There’s nothing worse than a bee sting on your face or close to your eyes!

Frames: (8 or 10 of them depending on which size of hive boxes you choose). The inserts are plastic and coated with wax. What’s cool is that it doesn’t effect the taste of your honey.

Queen marking tool: It’s easier to spot the queen when you have her marked. Some beekeepers will just pick her up but this tool makes it so you can have her in one spot to mark her yourself.

A hive box: This comes already dipped in wax so you don’t have to paint it.

A bottom board and a lid: These are necessary for the hive to protect them and is kinda the completion of the hive.

Hive tool: What every beekeeper needs to get started and uses throughout the beekeeping journey. The hive is helpful in so many ways. Kind of a crowbar with many uses.

Uncapping tools: This is useful for either uncapping honey but can also be helpful for when you are testing for mites.

Brush: This is helpful for when you are ready to extract honey. You will want to have a way to get all the bees off of the frames. A light sweep of the brush will usually do the trick!

Queen excluder: When you are ready to place the box on top of the hive that is designated for your honey, you will want to make sure the queen cannot access it. Nothing is more disgusting than finding eggs or half developed bees in your honey. The queen excluder prevents her from doing this.

A tool for grabbing frames and for holding frames: I wish I had these tools when I started. There’s a tool that you can use to grab the frames. Sometimes it’s hard to grab them with your hands (especially if you have gloves on). The other tools is for setting the frames onto. Without this tool, you are left placing the frames on the ground or awkwardly placing them back into the hive during an inspection. It’s very cumbersome. Fortunately, the frame holder makes it so much easier.

Bee feeder: There are a couple of different tools used to feed the bees. However, this kit comes with one ready to use. It’s important the honeybees have enough food going into winter or if you have just installed a package of bees.

Cleaning shovel and wheel embedder: As a beekeeper, I have never needed to use these tools. I’m sure the shovel can come in handy for many tasks. The wheel embedder could play a role when it’s time to extract honey.

Should I pick an 8 frame box or a 10 frame box option?

This comes down to personal opinion. If you talk to most beekeepers who have been doing this for years and years, they will most likely have the 10 frame boxes filled with bees.

However, 8 frames isn’t a bad idea. Yea, there are fewer frames so you’ll want to make sure you check before the season ends to ensure the bees have enough food. However, 8 frames does mean less stress on your back as you’re lifting the boxes.

I have also used hive boxes that only have 8 frame mediums instead of deeps to make the back-breaking work of lifting the boxes a little easier.

The difference is also in the cost. It, of course, costs more for a 10 frame than an 8 frame. The choice is really up to you.

This kit includes a lot, is there anything else I would need?

Aside from the bees themselves, this kit really includes a lot for a decent price. I remember when I started beekeeping I had purchased everything separately and still managed to not have everything I needed.

When starting out as a new beekeeper, this kit covers most of it. However, as the hive starts to increase in size, you’ll want to purchase additional boxes.

A box or two for the bees themselves to make sure they have enough space (and enough food to make it through the winter) and a honey super box for the honey you plan to collect from them by the end of the honey flow season.

Is this beekeeping starter kit worth it?

This kit is definitely worth the money. It serves novice beekeepers with the necessary tools to get started in a rad but rather addictive hobby. Here is a list of pros and cons:

Pros:

• It’s affordable.
• You won’t need to get anything else until the hive has increased in size.
• It’s already covered in beeswax so you won’t have to paint it.
• It’s already assembled.

Cons

• The hat and veil seem to be a bit small and cheap. For some people, especially new beekeepers, they will usually get a full bee suit or the bee jacket to cover more while tending to bees.

To wrap things up…

Beekeeping is such an addictive hobby. It can be heartbreaking but rewarding as well (and I’m not just referring to the honey). However, it’s important for new beekeepers to have the necessary tools to make it all happen. Otherwise, it can be very frustrating.

The beekeeping starter kit really does cover it all for first time beekeepers and is well worth the money to invest in. Some of these items alone, added up can cost a lot more!

If you have any questions or experience with this starter kit, please leave them in the comments below!