Beekeeping can be a thrilling addition to any environment, from farms to urban backyards. However, finding and buying your beekeeping supplies is an essential step in beginning or advancing your beekeeping journey. The right tools can make or break your budget, your business and even your bee colony.
Sadly, although it is always better to support local, it may not be possible to buy from your local shops. Where do you go from here?
Fear not! This blog post will shortly discuss where you can find the best beekeeping supplies! Whether you are a hobbyist starting small, or whether you are beginning a beekeeping career – we’ll help you choose the best places to buy your bees, your tools, and your protective gear in 2022.
Note for beginners before choosing a supplier:
Make sure that you have already established a budget and a shopping list before choosing a supplier! You will need a hive, bees, a queen, and some protective gear at the very least. But making sure that you have all the necessary tools is an important step in ensuring a safe, productive environment for both you and your bees.
Consider purchasing beginners beekeepers kits to start off with and remember that you will probably also need tools to harvest and process your honey, beeswax, or bees, depending on what your chosen output is.
Choosing where to buy your supplies…
If you Google “Beekeeping supplies”, hundreds of links will pop up. This can be completely overwhelming! Most businesses will promise you that they are providing you with the best quality products at the cheapest prices. Therefore, to make setting up your perfect apiary that much easier, we are going to discuss which beekeeping supplies are best!
We’ll be referencing Kiah Treece’s article “Best Bee Supply Companies” as they claim to have reviewed these suppliers and their products thoroughly. We’ve independently reviewed these websites and are obliged to agree! Here is what we found when we visited each of the websites below.
- Mann lake Bee & Ag Supply: Overall Best Supplier
Mann Lake Bee & Ag Supply is the overall best place to get your bees and supplies. On their website, Mann Lake Bee & Ag Supply offer high-quality supplies for bees, birds, and farm animals. They sell bees, bulk supplies, and gifts. You can order a catalogue from them, or simply browse their extensive collection.
Their website is super easy to navigate with their products being organised according to popular categories like “Getting Started”, “Hive Protection”, “Extraction” and even “Candle, Wine, & Soap Making”.
But why is this company voted the best overall? Well, consider its vast selection, well-made products, and easily accessible beginner resources. They have many positive reviews, with many customers claiming that the products are durable and made well. They offer live bees, cater to both hobbyists and commercial keepers, provide helpful information and they make purchasing beekeeping tools for the first time super simple!
But more than this, they provide resources for every stage of the beekeeping process through their educational videos, classes, and a directory to help beekeepers meet other beekeeping enthusiasts.
However, before you get ready to place your order, consider that this company is quite high in terms of the price and some people have complained of shipping issues and delays despite their promise to ship in 24-48 hours. Apart from these two possible issues, consider visiting their website when deciding where to order your supplies!
- HumbleBee: Best Supplier for Protective Wear
Humblebee offers a variety of high-quality protective beekeeping equipment at a reasonable price. Humble Bee is highly revered for its high-quality, well-reviewed products. Better yet, they offer a two-year warranty on all their products as part of their ‘satisfaction guarantee’.
The Humblebee website opens onto an aesthetic purple and yellow themed homepage, conveniently organised by “Top Picks”, “Customer Favourites” and the “On Sale” items. You’ll also find a pop-up chat feature where you can ask for assistance if you need it. Furthermore, Humblebee offers free shipping on orders over $39, making it a lot cheaper compared to many other websites (which usually offer free shipping for orders over $100).
What’s more, is that the company is committed to the conservation of bees and donates 10% of its profits to bee conservation organisations. Long live the bees!
One of the biggest downfalls of this website is that they only sell protective beekeeping gear and not other beekeeping equipment. More so, some reviews indicate that they may be experiencing some sizing issues. Take note of this when deciding where to place your order!
- Dadant & Sons, Inc: Best Supplier for Hobbyists
Dadant has made and sold top-quality beekeeping supplies and equipment throughout the world for over 150 years. On their website, they claim that they can provide the proper equipment and information to ensure a successful outcome to hobbyists and commercial keepers alike. Accordingly, beginners can take advantage of their learning centre, news, resources, and link to the American Bee Journal in their drop-down menu.
Moreso, Dadant offers an easy to navigate menu of products like frames and protective suits. Especially beneficial to beginners, Dadant offers flexible beginner beekeeping kits which contain everything a new keeper would need to start their first colony, (except the bees themselves).
Hobbyists will especially enjoy their offer of supplies for candle and soap making, as well as various other honey-related craft supplies which you can get delivered for free when you spend over $100!
One of Dadant’s downfalls, however, is that reviews indicated a slow-to-reply customer support team, plus they do not supply bees! So, you’ll have to order elsewhere.
- Better Bee: Best Supplier for Harvesting and Processing Honey Goods
The Betterbee website opens onto a homepage that immediately gives the impression of professionalism. This supplier offers so much that we must recommend giving their page at least a visit! From a detailed “About Us” to an incredibly resourceful “Information Centre”, their page offers even mere visitors to their website an array of beekeeping supplies, and that is before looking at their vast offering of beekeeping products to purchase.
Beekeeping beginners visiting the Betterbee website will find links, instructions, a quick guide to beekeeping, a newsletter and everything from starter kits to the bees themselves. Betterbee will satisfy both the hobbyist and the commercialist with their vast selection of hive management, hive component and gift, soaps, and skincare products.
However, rather uniquely, Betterbee offers an entire dropdown menu for “Honey Harvesting and Processing Equipment” which we have not seen on many other websites. They make purchasing your honey collecting and processing goods convenient and quick. In addition, you can choose from over 20 types of customisable labels and numerous containers, lids, and moulds.
But before placing your order, consider that Betterbee does not offer a delivery deal (i.e., spend $100 and receive free shipping) and this can be quite costly when importing goods if you do not live in the USA.
- Good Land Bee Supply: Best Supplier of Customer support in the Bee Supplier World
Open Good Land Bee Supply’s website and you’ll immediately understand why we’re categorising them as the “Best Supplier of support in the Bee Supplier World. Their unique mission statement claims that they combine years of feedback with their customer’s feedback to make products that benefit both beginner beekeepers and beekeeping professionals equally. Good Land Bee Supply offers a large variety of goods including protective gear, honey extractors, beekeeping tools, smokers, and bee kits.
Further still, Good Land Bee Supply boasts 99% positive customer feedback, with a “Best in Class” customer care team. Even the toughest critic must admit that this is incredibly impressive!
However, consider that Good Land Bee Supply does not offer any soap or candle making products and are rather limited regarding resources available to beginners in the way of informational resources and starter kits.
To Summarise…
Finding the right beekeeping supplies is incredibly difficult when there are hundreds, if not thousands of suppliers to choose from. Knowing who is credible is hard! That is why we have reviewed the best of the best to help you find the top suppliers for your beekeeping needs.
Remember! The best way to save money is to buy local. Moreso, buying local is also extremely beneficial when sourcing your bees as it saves them a long journey and ensures that they are already acclimated to your environment. But sometimes this just is not possible.
When considering online suppliers, make sure that you always consider their reviews. They may promise excellent quality and good service while providing shoddy, overpriced products, and horrible service. Do your research!
Another important consideration is delivery costs and whether the supplier delivers to your country. It is all good and well to find a credible online supplier, but this won’t help much if you cannot ship the goods.
We hope that armed with this advice and our list of the best beekeeping supply companies, you’ll find all of the inventory you’ll need to set up and stock your apiaries.
Happy beekeeping!
