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How to start beekeeping and experience the taste of your own bees honey.
Beekeeping is a brilliant hobby. It's fun, challenging, rewarding and the whole family can get involved. Want to know how to start beekeeping? It starts with buying some bees and we have nucleus colonies for sale that are calm, placid and make the perfect partner for your back garden hive.
1. EDUCATE YOURSELF
Before you buy your bees, do as much research as you can. Read books, watch videos, speak to beekeepers. You want to learn as much as you can before the bees arrive. We also recommend joining the local beekeeping association and going to a taster session before you buy your bees. This will give you a good idea of what the hobby is about.
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2. BUY EQUIPMENT
Once you are sure beekeeping is for you it's time to buy your equipment. Beekeeping can be an expensive hobby but buy cheap, buy twice is a good philosophy to follow. Don't buy cheap equipment and definitely don't buy used equipment. It's a massive disease risk. We recommend poly hives from Abelo. They are the best on the market.
3. LOCATION
We always suggest to beginners to not place your bees in your back garden, unless it's HUGE. Out apiaries are just so much easier to manage. The bees are much happier out of the way and it makes the management of bees so much easier. Speak to a local farmer and see if they are willing to let you place some beehives on their land.
4. ORDER YOUR BEES
This is probably the most important step in the process. Buy your bees from a trusted seller or purchase them from your local beekeeping association. Make sure the bees have been inspected by a professional beekeeper for disease. Buying cheap bees never ends well. They either end up dying or even worse, spreading disease around your brand new apiary.
5. LEARN SOME MORE
Now your bees have arrived, this is where you begin to learn what beekeeping is all about. Observe your bees at every opportunity but only inspect them when its needed. Bees tend to do better when they are not disturbed too often but you need to inspect them at least once per week to ensure that they don't swarm. When bees swarm EVERYTHING becomes a lot more difficult. Try to avoid it.
6. YOUTUBE
It would take me years to try and write down the details of my YouTube videos, so why not subsrcibe to my channel and see for yourself. I have recorded over 1300 videos which document how to start beekeeping but also how to manage your bees effectively throughout the season. We film 3 new videos every single week and there is a video available for any question you may have about bees.
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Great service with the best queens. Never miss the videos. The best YouTube channel by far. Answers every question on his live streams without Super Chats
David J Biscoe
How to start beekeeping. All you need to know.
Beekeeping mistakes. I have made them all. In the video below I give you an overview of how to start beekeeping but also let you in on some tricks of the trade which means you don't have to make the same mistakes I made when I was starting beekeeping over 10 years ago.
HOW TO START BEEKEEPING IN 2024. LEARN MORE.
How to start beekeeping with our buckfast nucs for sale
From Nationals to Flow Hives, we have nucleus colonies for sale to fit your beehive. Our calm, placid honey bees arrive with an F1 Mated Buckfast queen, 3 to 4 frames of brood in all stages and are securely packaged in a Paynes poly nuc. The perfect way to start beekeeping.
Worth every penny, I'm not tight I'm cash conscious so for me to pay a small monthly subscription and keep paying it I must feel it's value for money. If I ask a question, it's answered personally in mins. And the videos are so on time for what you should be doing and when you never miss a trick
Cub Rider
Our ordering process is simple
We do our best to make things as simple as possible. From fast checkouts to Apple/Google Pay. We have you covered.
Easy Ordering
Our website is backed by WIX so it's super-fast and secure. We support fast checkouts with Google/Apple Pay to make ordering as simple as possible. We take all major credit/debit cards.
Fast Delivery
We work as hard as the bees to get your orders to you ASAP. Queens/Nucs are sent via Royal Mail’s Special Tracked Next Day Delivery and all other orders are sent via a Tracked 48hr service.
Customer Service
We don’t just deliver your bees and abandon you. We produce a wide range of videos to help you become a better beekeeper. We are always contactable by phone, email or WhatsApp.
Quality Products
Whether you want to buy queen bees or you are looking for nucs for sale, quality is everything to us. We don't cut corners! When you buy from BMH, you get the very best bees money can buy.
Discover Nucs Bees Case Studies
Why Cold Weather Might Be A Blessing For Your Bees
Most beekeepers see snow and frost and immediately worry that their bees are going to starve or struggle. But in the UK in particular, cold weather is usually not the enemy. In fact, cold weather can be a blessing for your bees and can be one of the best things for a colony because it makes winter predictable, and predictable winter is what stops colonies quietly burning through stores and ending up in trouble. In this blog I am going to explain why cold weather helps, what the real winter...
Use A Hard Frost To Kill Wax Moth In Stored Frames With No Chemicals
Wax moth can absolutely ruin a stack of stored brood comb and what makes it worse is that most people only react once they spot the damage, by which point the frames are already on the way out. I want to show you a simple winter trick that costs nothing, uses no chemicals, and works brilliantly if you get a proper hard frost. This is one of those rare moments in beekeeping where nature hands you a free solution. You just have to use it properly. Killing wax moth In a good colony, wax moth is...
How To Mark A Queen Bee
Marking a queen bee is one of those small jobs that makes a huge difference to your beekeeping. Once you know how to mark a queen safely and confidently, everything from finding her on a busy frame to tracking her age and performance becomes much easier. In this blog I will walk you through exactly how I mark a mated queen, the tools I use, and some simple tips to help you avoid common mistakes. If you have ever thought “I can never find my queen” or “I am too nervous about hurting her”,...
A Look Inside An Old Abandoned Wasps Nest
How To Light A Bee Smoker - Heat, Fuel and Cool
How To Scorch, Clean and Sterilise Beehives
How I Extract Honey From Honeycomb
How To Make Natural Beeswax Firelighters From Old Brood Frames
Old brood frames and scrap beeswax can look like a horrible mess, but there is still a lot of value left in them. Once I have rendered out as much wax as I sensibly can, there is often a pile of darker, lower grade wax that I would never use for candles or cosmetics. Instead of throwing it away, I turn it into simple, natural firelighters. In this guide I will walk you through how I make beeswax firelighters using wood wool and recovered wax from old brood frames. This is not about fancy...
How To Render Beeswax Cappings Into Beeswax Blocks
Beeswax cappings are one of the nicest by products of extracting honey. They look and smell fantastic, they are usually much cleaner than old brood comb, and they give you some of the highest quality wax you will ever get from your bees. A lot of beekeepers scrape them off, let them pile up in a tub and never quite get around to dealing with them. That is a shame, because with a simple process you can turn those sticky cappings into clean wax blocks ready for candles, polishes or swapping in...
How I Time My Varroa Treatment Around A Cold Snap To Kill More Mites
Varroa is still the number one health threat to honey bees in the UK. You feel it in spring when colonies that looked fine in autumn come out weak, slow and virus ridden. One of the biggest improvements I have made in my own beekeeping is learning to time winter oxalic acid treatments around a natural brood break, instead of just picking a random date on the calendar. In this guide I will show you how I use the first proper cold snap as a trigger, apply a simple three week rule and then treat...
