How to Put on a Beekeeping Suit

Series Summary

Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper, or apiarist, keeps bees in order to collect honey and beeswax, for the purpose of pollinating crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary. There are considerable regional variations in the type of hive in which bees are kept. A hive is a set of rectangular wooden boxes filled with movable wood or plastic frames, each of which holds a sheet of wax or plastic foundation. The bees build cells upon the sheets of foundation to create complete honeycombs.

Learning the basics of beekeeping starts with safety and knowing how to keep from disturbing the bees. In this free video series, a professional beekeeper will teach you about beekeeping, from putting on a beekeeper's suit to building a hive box, using a smoker, and building an active hive. You'll learn how to avoid bee stings and treat stings, how to inspect a hive, and how to identify different bees, such as queens, drones, and worker bees. With these tips and techniques, you could produce as much as thirty pounds of honey a day with one beehive!

Video Transcript

"When you're working with bee hives, if you don't want to be stung, you need good protection. Typically, this would consist of coveralls, a veil, gloves and these bands around your legs so you don't get bees in your pants, so to speak. The first thing you do, put on the coveralls. Now if we were just going to take a quick look at a bee hive, we wouldn't go through all of this paraphernalia necessarily. But if you're going to go out and do some fast work and you don't want to have to be too cautious every move you make, protection is good. Coveralls on. Next you want to put on the veil and it's a hat and a veil that is secured at the bottom edge of the veil with a string that goes around the back and tied in the front. It works pretty good. It allows you to move your head pretty good even when it's tied. Take it around the back and then just tie it in the front area. And then you want to put on these leg straps to keep bees from flying up your pant leg. It's simply some Velcro on an elastic strap. It works pretty good. Now, if I was really doing some serious beekeeping, I'd have higher boots because you can get bees in around the socks. But for what we're doing today, that's good enough. And lastly, gloves. We have a kind of a little mesh area here so it helps keep them from being too hot. And I'm ready to go."