After my embarrassment of having to borrow equipment from another beekeeper two weeks ago (at a time when I'm sure he probably actually could have used it for his own purposes), I immediately placed an order for enough equipment to see me through - hopefully for a long time!
I buy all my beekeeping equipment online from a well-known national company (just Google 'beekeeping equipment') - it is expensive, but you get what you pay for. The quality of the cedar wood is superb and the company has exceptionally good green credentials - also very important to a beekeeper! I buy it all in flat-pack and assemble it myself, which is surprisingly simple after some practice - I can now make up a complete nucleus in a couple of hours and a full hive in three.
I usually take the parts to work with me and assemble them in the afternoons when it's quiet (one of the joys of being a self-employed shopkeeper) and it's becoming a regular tourist attraction in the town centre after the year we've had so far!
The latest massive delivery arrived today and it looks a bit like a warehouse in our garden now!
By the time all this lot is assembled we'll have enough to cope with a total of five nucs and five complete hives, including all the sundries to go with them. Considering my intention was to have just three colonies only (I'm still hoping to end the year with just three colonies), I really think that this will be enough now.
