Bees are fascinating creatures. Incredibly loyal little workers, bees are fun to watch and great for the environment. Demand for bees and beekeepers continues to draw both hobbyists and entrepreneurs. Interest in becoming an “apiarist,” the fancy word for a beekeeper, grows by the day. Packages like the Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit are making that easier.
Watching them buzz around the flowers, carrying the precious pollen back to the hive and understanding how important they are makes beekeeping a welcome and exciting hobby. And then there’s the mouth-watering honey. To begin your journey, you’ll need to buy some essentials. Bees won’t come live with you if you can’t provide them with some basic needs. A starter kit offers just that.
The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is a great way for a beginner to get most of the needs of a new beekeeper. Beekeeping isn’t just putting bees in boxes out back. Apiarists take their craft seriously, and they demand high-quality equipment. Your bees are your friends. The last thing you want is to make them your enemy.
Shoddy setups and inferior safety equipment will create tension between you and your bees that will result in stings, arm-flailing, and resentment. The bees won’t be very happy about it, either. The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit offers quality storage and honey-harvesting equipment as well as a smoker at a moderate price.
What Comes In The Kit?
The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit comes with everything you need to house bees and harvest honey. It does not, however, come with any protective clothing, gloves or veil.
The hive itself is a “super box,” consisting of ten wood frames. The frames have pre-built cells for your bees to fill with honey. Goodland’s super boxes come with a plastic foundation and a free separator for your queen.
Buy on Amazon
While the package does not come with protective equipment, it does come with a smoker. Smokers are essential beekeeping equipment. The smoke stuns the bees without harming them, allowing you to work around them safely.
The harvesting equipment included with the kit is nothing short of impressive. The worst part of starting a new hobby is the nickel and diming on small items you had no idea you’d need. The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit comes with all the hand tools and accessories needed to harvest raw honey properly:
- Uncapping knife
- Brush
- Frame remover
- Wood handle scraper
- Decapping roller
- Stainless steel lifter/j-hook tool
- Spacer
The two-frame honey extractor is as basic as they come. Using a hand crank to turn your frames like a centrifuge, honey spins away from the frames and leaves the comb intact. Your bees will thank you, as you’ve saved them weeks of work rebuilding.
While a hand-crank extractor may seem crude, it is incredibly efficient. Crush and strain is the other method, which doesn’t save any time. It makes more of a mess and forces your bees to rebuild their combs from scratch. While the new apiarist will be eager to learn all of the methods of the craft, starting with a centrifugal extractor is always the way to go.
Pricing
The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is a moderately-priced way to start your hobby. It isn’t the least expensive, nor is it the most expensive, kit on the market. It costs between $$$ and $$$.
How The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit Stacks Up To Competitors
Goodland Bee Supply offers a great product at a pleasantly mid-range price point. There are, however, other things to consider. You will still need a complete bee suit, which can cost anywhere from $$ for something you may not trust to keep you safe, to more than $$$ for something you can wear into battle with yellow jackets.
The bee supply industry is still small, but it is proliferating. Competition for the loyalty of new apiarists is fierce, leading to starter packages available at several price points. The features important to you, therefore, become the deciding factor. It is, however, always a great idea to explore all of your options when making a significant purchase.
Buy on Amazon
This beekeeping starter kit is billed as “everything you need to get going.” Pierco has several kits available, with this being the closest comparable kit to the Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit.
Unfortunately, the Pierco kit has no honey extractor. There is, however, a beekeeper’s jacket, gloves, and hat. If worn properly with jeans this setup is perfect for the beginner with just a few hives. This set comes with a box very close in quality to the Goodland Bee Supply super box. One significant difference is wax-dipping. Pierco dips most of their products in wax, making them sturdy in harsh weather and easier to clean. The frames with this box are open, meaning your bees will have to make their honeycomb, and smash and strain will be your method of extraction.
The hand tools are basic as well; nowhere near the functionality of the set offered by Goodland. While you won’t need the array of tools that assist you with a centrifugal extractor, the frame remover alone is as valuable as all the other tools put together. Both kits include a smoker.
The Pierco kit costs between $$$ and $$$. All in all, the extractor that is missing from this kit will cost you nearly $$$, meaning a $$ beekeeper’s suit and some wax-dipping just doesn’t quite cut it. Pierco offers a decent product, but the Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is well worth the extra money.
Buy on Amazon
Dadant offers what they call a beginner beekeeping kit costs between $$$ and $$$ depending on where you buy it from. Once again, however, the focus is on the hive and the protection and not the honey. The hive, in this case, is very impressive.
Dadant’s deep brood boxes with plastic foundations come assembled and painted. Goodland’s super boxes come some-assembly-required. The difference is in the shipping until you consider that Dadant ships orders over $100 for free. While Dadant’s hive is worth considerably more, their protective gear is, once again, a swing and a miss compared to the value of that Goodland extractor. The kit comes with one large pair of leather gloves, an Alexander bee veil, one hive tool, one smoker with a guard and a bonus “Starting Right with Bees” book.
With premium features like a queen excluder and entrance feeder, the Dadant kit wears more like the shirt of a professional than that of a beginner. The hive and equipment are top-notch. They are not, however, enough to overcome the value of the Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit.
Buy on Amazon
“Flow” is the nickname of the site honeyflow.com. They offer premium packages of hives and equipment for those taking beekeeping to the next level. “Flow Bundles,” packages that include hives and safety suits range from $$$ to nearly $$$$.
Flow isn’t so much for professionals as it is for those with a little more to spend on their hobby. Their hives look like backyard super-structures for bees, and their protective wear comes with multiple suits for mom, dad, and even the kids. When money isn’t an issue, and you want your hobby to be impressive and pleasing to the eye, Flow is where you want to go.
Flow isn’t just a pretty hive in a family-friendly box. It’s a honey harvesting system unto itself. Flow is patented technology out of Australia that is taking the beekeeping world by storm. Anyone can operate a Flow hive with its turnkey extraction system and watch clean, raw honey drizzle directly from the hive to the jar.
With all of the bells and whistles, the Flow systems are impressive. While they may not seem practical, no apiarist would turn down the chance to display one proudly on their property. The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is the way to get your feet wet, but somewhere down the road, you’re going to want to trade your Chevy in for a Cadillac.
The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is a great way to dive into the world off beekeeping. As with any product, however, there are pros and cons.
- Unlike other beginner systems, the Goodland system offers a clean and easy way to harvest raw honey. The extractor they include with their package is made of restaurant-grade stainless steel, making it simple to clean with warm, soapy water.
- The “super box” is easy to use and portable. It can be broken down for shipping or storage or screwed together permanently. The plastic foundation ensures a long-lasting hive with minimal maintenance.
- The tools that come with the Goodland system are all you need for simple beekeeping. The frame extractor is worth its weight in gold. This company is very good at helping you return clean, intact honeycomb to the hive. Your bees will thank you by refilling them as quickly as they can.
- Price. What stands out about the price of this package is the extractor. No other package includes one, yet some prices are similar. Goodland replaced a suit with a stainless steel, restaurant grade item that will save you time and mess and save your bees weeks of rebuilding after a harvest. With its reasonable price, you’re going to be able to grab a decent suit and call yourself “beekeeper” for well under $$$.
- The Goodland beginner system doesn’t come with any protective gear. You will spend anywhere from $40 to $400 to rectify the problem, depending on your taste and budget. On the bright side, you won’t be forced to wear something just because it came in the box. Apparel is more personal than that, especially if you wear an uncommon size.
- The only other con is the knife. The system comes with an “uncapping knife.” It’s used to cut the beeswax from the honeycombs before extraction. A hot knife, which makes that operation far easier and causes less damage, would have made this kit untouchable.
Beekeeping is more than a hobby. It’s more than a business. It’s a passion. Apiarists understand the importance of what they do. Human beings require ridiculous amounts of food. We require ridiculous amounts of food to feed our food. Bees are nature’s little pollinators, and we need to take care of them. Studies show that without them… We’re in big trouble.
That makes your decision to buy a beginner system an important one. The Goodland Bee Supply GL-E2-1SK-TK1 Beekeeping Starter Kit is the perfect solution. With a small, easy to use hive and all the tools you need to harvest raw honey, this system is a great way to learn to properly and safely keep bees.
There aren’t a lot of options for beginner systems, and none are quite as unique as this one. Ultimately, it is the perfect stepping stone to the other hives we’ve talked about. Raising a small, one-hive colony and expanding to deep brood box or two is a great goal for a beginner apiarist. Those with large amounts of property and families will benefit even further by upgrading to a Flow hive.
No matter what your goal, the Goodland system will help get you there.