Tools & Smokers - BeeGearWise

Queen Catcher and Clip: Finding Her Without Crushing Her

There is a specific moment that convinces a backyard beekeeper to buy a queen catcher. You have finally spotted her, …

The bellows smoker is one of the oldest tools in beekeeping and it has barely changed in a century and …

A smoker is the only thing in a beekeeping bucket that is on fire. Everybody knows that in the abstract, …

Antique bee smokers turn up constantly at farm auctions, estate sales and in the back of barns, and they are …

Finding the queen on a frame covered in eight thousand of her daughters is a skill that takes most beginners …

Most beekeepers start with a standard flat hive tool because that is what comes in the starter kit, and most …

There is a particular kind of frustration that only beekeepers know: the smoker that looked fine on the tailgate, produced …

Bees glue their hive together. Propolis, the sticky resin they collect and pack into every gap, cements frames to rests, …

New beekeepers inspect for too long and look at too much. It is understandable: the hive is fascinating, every frame …

Every inspection has the same awkward moment. The box is open, you have a hive tool in one hand and …

Most beekeeping equipment lists read like an inventory of a supply catalog. In practice, what a backyard keeper carries to …

Sooner or later a backyard beekeeper gets the phone call. A swarm has settled twenty feet up a maple, or …