Beekeeping is a wonderful hobby and lucrative small business when managed right. To start beekeeping, a basic set of equipments are needed. Beekeeping knowledge is also essential in order to succeed with keeping bees and producing good quality honey.

Here is a list of beekeeping equipments that are good to have when you start beekeeping:

1. Hives - Bee hives have several elements such as the box, frames, bottom board and cover and fume boards. The hives stacks of four-sided, bottomless boxes that hold wooden frames upon which the bees build their combs. Each hive has a bottom board and cover. The bees glue the small cracks between the components together with "bee glue" which is called propolis. The frames rest on ledges cut into the top of the boxes. Sheets of embossed beeswax (foundation) are attached in the frames to provide the bees with the midribs for their new combs. The bees extend the foundation wax and add more to it and draw comb cells out of each side of the sheet. The comb cells are used for food storage, clustering, raising baby bees, and air conditioning. Queen Bee excluders are wire or plastic screens with a mesh size that allows worker bees to pass through while preventing the passage of the queen.

2. Fume boards are similar to covers, with an extra rim that provides a space for an absorbent pad saturated with liquid bee repellent, the fumes of which drive bees from the boxes.
3. Entrance reducers are wooden or plastic blocks that partially close hive entrances to prevent robbing or entrance of mice. Robbing screens allow continuous ventilation of the hive while prohibiting entry of robbing bees.
4. Bee feeders - Feeders are usually gallon cans with small holes in the cap that fit into a hole drilled into the hive cover; or a plastic or waxed wooden device that has similar dimensions to drawn combs and hangs with them and into which syrup is poured.
5. Smoker and some other hive tools.
6. White coveralls, elbow-length gloves, veil and hat prevent from stings if the smoke fails to calm the bees while a hive tool is being used to break apart the propolis bonds between the components in the hive.

When beekeepers go to work they have essential tools needed to keep themselves safe because having a couple hundred beestings can be fatal. This is why it's important that beekeepers practice and exercise safety.

In order to select the beekeeping equipments that suits your budget, browse around the Internet, or ask from others who are already keeping bees.

Discover more about beekeeping at TheBeekeepingSecrets.com.