Another auction? Don't mind if I do.

This weekend I went to get rained on at yet another auction. I've noticed beekeepers seem to be quite keen on auctions. Apparently some chap had decided to cease his beekeeping and so was selling off all his stuff. And what a lot of stuff there was, from the usual bits of various hive type to an extractor and a burco boiler. Someone from the local beekeeping association was letting the auction take place in his rather smart garden and the auctioneer was same guy who'd done the first auction I'd been to, aided by a girl who against the odds managed to keep track of who'd won what at what price.

Brood boxes

I came away with 3 supers, 3 crownboards, a capping fork, a frame scraper, two single hive stands, two double hive stands and 5 honey buckets. I don't need all those hive stands really, but they were a job lot for the princely sum of £2 and I thought one might be useful to put things on when I'm working my hives. Think I'll be popping the 3 I don't need on eBay or possibly chopping them up for the chimenea or maybe even donating them to a mate as firewood for the winter -yes some people in Hull still use wood for that. Likewise I really don't need 5 honey buckets but I can always store away the unneeded ones till I do. When you look into beekeeping people will tell you about all the obvious things you're going to need, things like some actual bees and things like something for them to live in. What people don't bother to mention is that you'll also need a large aircraft hanger to store all the bee related gubbins you'll accrue, most of which is very bulky and being for seasonal use will languish in storage for most of the year.
 

Auction in the rain

Whilst we were told all the kit was sterilised prior to the auction it'd be a bit unwise to rely on that. For now I've got the supers and tools all taped up in bin bags with little bowls of acetic acid (Note to self: next time use gloves handling that stuff) in each to kill various bee disease related nasties, after a week or so of that I'll remove the wax and clean up the wood as I did the hives earlier this year, I won't be needing them till next summer so won't be hurrying with it. At some point I may put some thought into changing the colour to match the rest, but that's just a minor thing really the reddish brown paint looks to be pretty tough stuff and probably offers more protection than the green I'm using at the moment. The existing wax comb I'll remove, and eventually melt, filter and probably try to flog. I spent today scorching the crownboards, making porter bee escape holes in two of them and treating their outer edges with shed and fence paint. If you're looking to start out in bee keeping you can save quite a bit by getting used kit, as long as you're prepared to spend a few hours (or days) sterilising it all later on.