{"id":15,"date":"2009-03-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westnyackhoney.com\/bees\/_blog\/?p=12"},"modified":"2009-03-21T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-21T13:00:00","slug":"online-beekeeping-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.westnyackhoney.com\/bees\/online-beekeeping-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Beekeeping Supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve been buying my woodware from mail order houses. There are no retail bee stores within easy driving distance. I would much rather touch the stuff that I am going to buy, but I can’t so I have to make do with a brief description and a fuzzy picture.<\/p>\n
The main problem with buying hives and supers via mail order is that they are heavy. The shipping costs are nasty. I’ve been paying upwards to $60 every time I make a big order.<\/p>\n
I decided to spend a few minutes Googling for beekeeper supplies and make a list of websites, their locations and the cost of three items so you can compare. It is better, however to buy from a nearby location than the cheapest place. The shipping price can triple to send heavy boxes across the country. <\/p>\n
I want to compare the price of 1) a 10 frame hive kit with top and bottom board and frames. 2) a medium super unassembled. And 3) a cheap bee feeder. <\/p>\n
The list is quite short. I only chose websites that were high on the Google list and I only chose websites that had the products that I wanted to compare. There is a deep hive kit that consists of a hive and super that goes for around $100 at Dadant, but Dadant.com did not have the single hive body kit. The deep hive is good deal, but it would not compare well here. I was also amazed at the range in cost of the beginner’s complete kits. They went from cheap to expensive, but I don’t have the time to figure out why.<\/p>\n
Some stores don’t have ecommerce stores and you have to fill out an order form and mail it in. I even found one place that had good price stuff that didn’t accept credit cards. I could set them up with a paypal store in a few hours. <\/p>\n
The List:<\/p>\n
Store<\/td>\n | Location<\/td>\n | Unassembled Hive Kit (45 pounds) <\/td>\n | Unassembled Medium Super (7 pounds) <\/td>\n | Entrance Feeder (less than 1 pound) <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
Betterbee<\/a><\/td>\n | Greenwich, NY <\/td>\n | $61.95 (styrene top. Pierco frames) <\/td>\n | $11.55<\/td>\n | $2.00 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm<\/a> <\/td>\n | Moravian Falls, NC <\/td>\n | $56.95 <\/td>\n | $11.50 <\/td>\n | $2.35 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
Mann Lake Ltd.<\/a> Store<\/a> <\/td>\n | Hackensack, MN and Woodland, CA <\/td>\n | $78.50 (assembled) <\/td>\n | $9.35 <\/td>\n | $2.95 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
Ruhl Bee Supply<\/a><\/td>\n | Gladstone, OR<\/td>\n | $83.00 (assembled)<\/td>\n | $15.00<\/td>\n | ?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
Sacramento Beekeeping<\/a><\/td>\n | Sacremento, CA <\/td>\n | $69.85<\/td>\n | $13.95<\/td>\n | $3.95<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n |