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When you first start beekeeping, you will want to keep your cost as low as possible. There is some essential equipment which you will have to buy, such as protective clothing, a hive tool and a smoker. But when it comes to the beehive itself, you have a choice. Rather than buying an expensive beehive, you could always build your own hive.
You might think that you need to be a skilled carpenter to build a beehive, but this is not true at all. Many people with no previous experience have successfully built beehives. If you can follow instructions, and hammer in a nail, you will be able to build a beehive!
1. Save Money
The main advantage of building your own beehive is that it is much cheaper. Hives can be quite expensive to buy. Obviously the actual cost depends on the type of beehive you buy, and on the quality of the workmanship and materials. But unless you get a real bargain, making your own beehive will always be cheaper than buying one.
This is particularly so if you buy a fully assembled hive, due to the extra shipping charges because they are so much bulkier than a flat pack where you put the premade pieces of the hive together yourself. You really can build a beehive for a fraction of the cost.
2. Help the Environment
It is often possible to use recycled materials to build a beehive. This will make it even cheaper still - and you will be saving scarce resources and doing your bit for the environment into the bargain.
Also, shipping bulky items such as beehives, particularly across long distances, leaves a large carbon footprint. By using locally sourced materials and building your own beehive you can really help reduce this environment cost.
3. Job Satisfaction!
As well as saving money, it is also immensely satisfying to build your own beehive. Beekeeping itself is a very rewarding hobby, but it really is the icing on the cake knowing that you built their home with your own hands!
If you do decide to build your own beehive, just about the most important part of the job is before you lift a single tool - getting the right beehive plans and building instructions to start with. There are lots of plans available free on the internet, but many of these are incomplete or the instructions unclear.
The danger is that you only discover this half way through the job, having wasted a lot of time and effort to get that far. To save yourself this difficulty, only get plans from reliable sources and always read your plans through from start to finish before you begin.
