Changing Beekeeping Equipment

I got started in beekeeping when I was given some equipment.  It consisted of 10 frame deep and medium hive bodies.  This year my bees died yet again, however there was a lot of honey left in the hive so I decided to harvest it.  I lifted the 10 frame deep full of honey off the stack and just about killed myself as it weighs something in the neighborhood of 100 lbs and is somewhat unwieldy.  Just to get it back to the house I had to put it in a small trailer behind my ridding mower.

While I’m reluctant to get rid of the equipment I have I’ve decided that I really need to reduce the weight of what I’m moving around.  Therefore I’ve decided to take Michael Bush’s advice and move to all medium 8 frame equipment, which would weigh about half of what a 10 frame deep does.  I ordered foundationless medium frames from Kelley Bees and will be building my own hive bodies based on these plans.  I figure I can build two hive bodies from a 12′ board that costs less than $9, which makes them about $4.50 each or about 1/3 the cost of buying them from a beekeeping supply house.

Author: Jerry Ward

Working on creating a 10 acre urban homestead in S.E. Michigan. To pay the bills I work as a product manager/business analyst in the IT field. Now the admin of Save Our Skills