A Beginners Guide to Beekeeping 

At National Bee Supplies, we have always been and continue to be passionate about supplying beekeepers with the finest quality hives, wax, and equipment. It is our responsibility to inspire the next generation of buzzing beekeepers. So we’ve been following Ian’s journey as a first-time beekeeper. 

A little bit about Ian. 

Ian is an account manager at one of our digital agency partners and expressed a desire to follow in his father’s footsteps of beekeeping. We offered to supply him with one of our complete starter kits in order to generate a real beginner’s guide to beekeeping. 

“Growing up I always had an interest in exotic pets, keeping a range of reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. This stemmed from my dad, who has always shared a similar interest in exotics and was a beekeeper himself many years ago.” 

“I moved to Bristol in 2013 and had often heard about how urban beekeeping was on the rise. With Bristol’s eclectic mix of markets and pop up stalls, I’d often come across beeswax products, which was from local beekeepers. Living in the city centre I’m fortunate to have a garden, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get started with urban beekeeping. To me, it seemed like no barrier to not only try and help contribute towards the bee population but be able to extract honey and was as a by-product as well.”

Ian’s first season of beekeeping. 

Ian started off his beekeeping journey with the National Hive Starter Kit. Our National Hive Starter Kit includes the following beekeeping essentials: National Hive with flat roof and foundation, £50 NBS Gift Voucher, all in one beekeeping suit, BBKA guide to beekeeping, rapid plastic feeder, smoker including fuel, collection of hive tools and Bee-friendly seed collection.

“My first season of beekeeping was surprisingly straight forward! I had envisaged trying to stagger around poorly behaved bees in the garden, apologising to neighbours for unwanted stings, and finding myself constantly attending to their fragile needs. In reality, the bees have been very well behaved and being left undisturbed, just go about their natural pollen-collecting process and remain a fixture in the corner of the garden with no issues or complaints.” 

Winner of the “Funny” Category

We’ll be keeping you up to date on Ian’s journey here on our blog.