Caveat emptor

[fatshark]

I see that the BBKA have an article on the economics of beekeeping, essentially a breakdown of essential outgoings and depreciation. They claim that keeping a single hive costs about 16 jars of honey (I think - I can't actually find the newsletter at the moment).

Perhaps …

2036

What they've not included are the items purchased that simply aren't any use whatsoever … they look good, but they don't do the job intended (or, for that matter, any job). I think we need a thread on unusable, poorly designed or otherwise unsuitable equipment. Those spur-of-the-moment convention or the mid-winter ill-advised catalogue purchases.

Here's my starter for ten … JzBz queen cell protectors.

2037

Too small. Too small for any queen cell I've ever raised at least, though I might have once seen one in a Kieler with about 100 bees in that might have fitted.

Save your money :)

[drumgerry]

Mine is the utterly pointless frame lifter which I bought when I started beekeeping many years ago and has never left its plastic wrapping. I'm sure given time I could come up with a few other pointless buys!

2038

[Bridget]

Drumgerry have you found it yet? I was going to see if it would work for me. I'm just waiting for the day when I drop a frame and the queen with it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[drumgerry]

No sign of it yet Bridget. If it turns up I'll give you a shout!

[lindsay s]

Mine is the utterly pointless frame lifter which I bought when I started beekeeping many years ago and has never left its plastic wrapping. I'm sure given time I could come up with a few other pointless buys!

2038

I’ve got this week off and I have a lot of beekeeping to catch up on. So far I’ve not had the weather to open up the hives. 10am today I was cutting grass around the hives in thick fog and hardly a bee was flying.
The frame grip I wouldn’t be without it and I’ve just received a new one. I have a habit of leaving them on the ground and standing on them. 90% of my beekeeping is done single handed. So when I’m trying to move cover cloths, smoke the colony and move frames at the same time while wearing thick leather gloves, the frame grip comes in very handy. Before anybody thinks I take a bull in a china shop approach to beekeeping I’ll plead not guilty. If I’m opening up a hive in poor weather and most of the bees are at home, two cover cloths and a little bit of smoke helps to maintain order. The thick leather gloves are needed because of my reaction to bee stings (I now have to carry an epipen). The frame grip is also very handy for carrying out quick inspections. Bridget I must add that the frame grip is not fool proof and I’ve had a few near misses but none involving the queen.
With other posters recommending dispensing with leather gloves and the bee brush I’ll soon have nothing left in my bee box! Soon we’ll have nothing left to talk about on this forum except for black bees, queen rearing and Heidi Herrmann and her sun hives.http://www.thorne.co.uk/image/cache/data/M%20Codes/M5016-800-500x500.jpg

[Black Comb]

Frame lifter, frame rest, queen clip catcher and multi coloured marking pen set.
I now only mark the queens white. The year is on the record card.

[fatshark]

I'll second that lot Black Comb … though I do sometimes use a rather fancy blue pen for marking … a sort of Royal blue :D The frame rest was a convention purchase. Stupid. My boxes are all 'warm way' and I inspect from behind the hive. The frame rest either goes on my side and gets in the way, or the other side out of sight and a bit more awkward to reach.

PS We should link this thread to a 'freebies' thread …

[EK.Bee]

The plastic budget crown of thorns & foam plunger
(old style wood & nylon crown is better)

The Sale £10 Paynes Miller feeder which needs quite a few tweeks to get it to
work without getting burr comb & bees drowned
The newer modified one also needs adapting to be serviceable

I also confess in a moment of sale madness to the Thornes Pith helmet :o which I'll never wear outside the shed

[drumgerry]

Handy if you ever go on safari though eh?!

[nemphlar]

A set of magnifier glasses which you need to be 2" from the frame for grafting, used a pound shop *3 today worked a treat

[Bumble]

I used the frame lifter once, and instantly regretted buying it. The queen clip might have been worth buying if I hadn't dropped it and then stood on it before ever getting the chance to use it.


I also confess in a moment of sale madness to the Thornes Pith helmet :o which I'll never wear outside the shed
I bought the other one!

On the other hand, the best freebies have to be the lookalike correx nucs and the cover cloths made from throwaway fabric, weighted with strips of acrylic from the throwaway bin at a signwriters.

[Rosie]

My worst buy was a heated decapping tray for over £200 about 10 years ago. I found that a plastic box with a home-made gauze bottom and stacked above a another box with a normal bottom was miles better at a tenth of the price.

[fatshark]

Strewth … it really hurt to spend £2.99 on 10 JzBz queen introduction cages but at least I could admit it to my wife (who was, as ever, very understanding). I can't imaging the response if I owned up to a £200 uncapping tray … or a pith helmet :D

Perhaps all SBAi contributors should purchase a pith helmet from Thorne's and wear it at the conventions as means of recognising each other.

2045

However, I bet Thorne's never re-stocked (and never thought they'd sell the two they had originally bought in ;))

[Rosie]

Fortunately I was able to flog the uncapping tray as not everyone shares my loathing of the things.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Irritating wobbling mistake: 2049

Even when I did manage to secure it, it still left an outside space for wasps to come and help themselves (doing both bee keeping and wasp keeping, I suppose).
Kitta