# $450 for complete hive



## bassmaster17327 (Apr 6, 2011)

Someone locally has complete colony of bees for sale, it has four (8 frame)medium supers and bees were installed on May 23rd for 450.00. Is this a good price? I have wanted bees for a while and it looks like this would be the easiest way since it is already complete


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## Dan in Ohio (Jul 16, 2005)

New assembled medium hive (4) from Kelley's would cost about $260. Bee packages this year were about $120.

Is it a good price? Don't know, I could argue either way. Costs more than doing it yourself, but too late to do it yourself.

Seems like a late install to me . . . I would think you have similar weather to southern OH . . . seems like the hive won't really get going with new bees until July . . . right in time for the summer dearth. I guess you could feed them a lot. I installed mine in late April and they are really taking off now a month and a half later . . . I see lots more bees and they have almost filled two mediums now . . . I will most likely put a third box on tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm new, so I'm no expert, but I wouldn't buy them unless you open it up and make sure you have a good laying queen and can see the eggs/larvae and also make sure it is a clean hive.

You have the equipment you need to work the hive?


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

That's kind of irregular equipment. 

I'll tell you what I sell for and maybe that will give you a better idea. I'm in Texas. I sell a single deep 10 frame hive with a screened bottom board, young laying queen and absolutely stuffed full of brood(I add capped brood from other hives) so that it will need a 2nd deep added quickly in equipment less than a year old, well painted, for $400


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

I use all medium boxes, for hive and supers, so I can interchange boxes and frames as necessary, but they're 10 frame. Three medium boxes come out to a little more space than two deeps, so I'm counting the bottom three boxes as brood boxes, and anything above that as supers. 8 frame are obviously a little smaller, but you could consider the same ratios appropriate. 

If you read the forums, you'll find that a lot of people like 8 frame setups, because they are lighter and easier to handle for maintenance. You won't have as many options in the catalogs for 8-frame gear, but it's not like it's going to be difficult to find. You'll be able to buy, from pretty much any major vendor, all the pieces you need t maintain it and\or expand into more hives of the same configuration if you want to later. 

8 frame is not "the standard", but it's not all that unusual either. 

If you buy this, a good chunk of the $450 the seller is asking is for the established and expanded colony- the woodenware alone is not worth it. So, if at all possible, take someone along to conduct a good inspection of the colony before you buy it. If that's not possible, at least watch some videos on hive inspection, figure out the things you should be looking for, and make the seller conduct the inspection and show these things to you.


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## Agriculture (Jun 8, 2015)

Given the cost of the equipment and bees, and the fact that he's doing the work of assembly and painting, and that they're already installed and established,I'd say that it is a fair price. I wouldn't pay it because I don't like paying for anything that I can do myself, but given your situation I don't think it's unreasonable.

FWIW, I don't care for these relatively new phenomena of using mediums for brood chambers and/or 8 frame equipment. Novices and women seem to like them because they are lighter. Suppliers make more money from selling 3 medium supers with frames than two deep. No, 8 frame equipment is not impossible to find, but nor is it on every page of every catalog. I just don't want to have to go searching for those that carry it, and from what I remember when I looked into it, one needed to use several suppliers to find every piece of 8 frame equipment needed. Just more work as far as I'm concerned, and I like to keep things simple. Part of it is that I'm resistant to change, especially for something that has always worked well in the past. In my area 2 deeps has always been the standard for brood chambers, and I've never had a problem with it. I don't buy the reasoning that it's easier to use all mediums and mix and match when needed. I only run a few hives, and seldom do I need to change brood chambers. It's just as easy to keep an extra deep around if needed. Plus, all mediums means that your honey supers which are the ones that you're mostly moving, are always heavier than if you use shallows. That's a lot of frequent weight lifting just for the sake of not having to lift a deep on rare occasions.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Agriculture said:


> Given the cost of the equipment and bees, and the fact that he's doing the work of assembly and painting, and that they're already installed and established,I'd say that it is a fair price. I wouldn't pay it because I don't like paying for anything that I can do myself, but given your situation I don't think it's unreasonable.
> 
> FWIW, I don't care for these relatively new phenomena of using mediums for brood chambers and/or 8 frame equipment. Novices and women seem to like them because they are lighter. Suppliers make more money from selling 3 medium supers with frames than two deep. No, 8 frame equipment is not impossible to find, but nor is it on every page of every catalog. I just don't want to have to go searching for those that carry it, and from what I remember when I looked into it, one needed to use several suppliers to find every piece of 8 frame equipment needed. Just more work as far as I'm concerned, and I like to keep things simple. Part of it is that I'm resistant to change, especially for something that has always worked well in the past. In my area 2 deeps has always been the standard for brood chambers, and I've never had a problem with it. I don't buy the reasoning that it's easier to use all mediums and mix and match when needed. I only run a few hives, and seldom do I need to change brood chambers. It's just as easy to keep an extra deep around if needed. Plus, all mediums means that your honey supers which are the ones that you're mostly moving, are always heavier than if you use shallows. That's a lot of frequent weight lifting just for the sake of not having to lift a deep on rare occasions.


This woman uses all deeps. Including for honey production. 

I only use deeps and have no mediums or shallows at all. When I used to use shallows it seemed that I was always needing a deep and only had shallows or vice versa. Now if I have frames I know they are going to be deeps. Same thing with boxes. Greatly simplifies things. If I were a small beekeeper with only a couple of hives it wouldn't be such a big thing.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Agriculture said:


> FWIW, I don't care for these relatively new phenomena of using mediums for brood chambers and/or 8 frame equipment. Novices and women seem to like them because they are lighter...


All mediums has gotten somewhat popular around where I live. It hasn't replaced or "caught" up to deep/shallows, but, again, is somewhat popular. Not sure why you "don't care for it". It is just something that other people do, and you don't necessarily have to concern yourself with, if you choose not to. 

And, despite your "women and novices" jab, I do know a professional using them, and he is rocking the old beans-and-frank. So, there's that. 

As for an example of how the frame interchangeability works out well, just one example:
After I re-queened one colony, I decided they needed a kickstart. So, right in the yard, without having to come back for equipment, I robbed a choice frame of brood from a more advanced colony, but didn't want to give up any of the established brood-box frames from the weaker colony, so they gave up one of the mostly-undrawn frames from their super. 

Too, at the end of the year, when they've slowed brood-making, if you want to bolster stores in the brood-chamber, it is just a simple matter of swapping in capped super frames to make sure they have enough to eat.

It may not be the right solution for everyone, but an all-medium set-up does have advantages for some, other than the infirm and inexperienced.


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

This has been a good read, I keep kicking around starting a couple of hives, maybe next spring I can do it, not only this post but several others also.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Do it. 
It it the lowest-bandwidth "livestock" you can have, and it adds so much to everything else (plant-based, at least) on your homestead. 

It's fascinating to watch them develop. It's a lot like an ant farm for adults. 
I could totally see someone keeping bees, even if they didn't want to harvest honey, or pollinate their garden and orchard- just for the observation and learning. 
The local flora will thank you.


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## bassmaster17327 (Apr 6, 2011)

Thanks everyone. I found another guy that is farther away but has a colony for sale that is two deeps for 300.00 and 50.00 for a supper. Is one supper the normal


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

edit: Sorry. Totally misread your question, and answered about how many deeps you should buy. 
The bees don't really have to have any supers. Those are yours. When the colony is fully up to speed, you may have 3-4 supers at a time going, it is based on your region and honey flows, and hard to say for sure. If you get one or two now, it's possible you'll get some honey out of them this year. You'll at least be ready to react when it's time next year. 

Are the supers full? For $50, I'm guessing not. If they have fresh drawn comb already, I'd buy as many as he'd let you for that price. 

Doing the inspection in still important though. They should still be foraging right now and you should be able to see the right mix of brood and stores before you take it home.


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> Do it.
> It it the lowest-bandwidth "livestock" you can have, and it adds so much to everything else (plant-based, at least) on your homestead.
> 
> It's fascinating to watch them develop. It's a lot like an ant farm for adults.
> ...


I'm closer to doing it then I've ever been.


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## Buffy in Dallas (May 10, 2002)

I just started into Langstroth hives and I use all 8 frame mediums. Its that or 8 frame shallows. I'm obviously a woman but also very weak and have a back injury. I can barely lift a full 8 frame medium. I had to have my son help me move a hive last weekend because it had 2 med. boxes and I couldn't lift it. 

8 frame mediums or shallows are also good for older beeks, or people with back problems, so they don't have to give up beekeeping just because they can't lift a deep anymore.


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

I am considering using all 10 frame mediums to keep it simple when I do get bees.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Buffy in Dallas said:


> I just started into Langstroth hives and I use all 8 frame mediums. Its that or 8 frame shallows. I'm obviously a woman but also very weak and have a back injury. I can barely lift a full 8 frame medium. I had to have my son help me move a hive last weekend because it had 2 med. boxes and I couldn't lift it.
> 
> 8 frame mediums or shallows are also good for older beeks, or people with back problems, so they don't have to give up beekeeping just because they can't lift a deep anymore.


There is no reason to lift a full box of any size. I place an empty box and transfer frames into it one at a time. When I am harvesting honey I have a deep super on a wagon with a piece of plywood under it and a top over it. I place frames that are mostly capped into the box on the wagon. This keeps me from having to lift heavy boxes and it also allows me to harvest fully ripened frames of honey and leave the rest of the frames on the hive for the bees to finish.

If I ever get enough time to build the screened bottom board pallets I want, I'll not ever have to lift another hive at all.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

If you ever reverse hive bodies, you'll be lifting full boxes. You could strip all the frames out and set them in anther box, but that seems like unnecessary disturbance. I've got one colony that only seems to want to build down, so I've been putting empties on the bottom all season.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Placing the frames one at a time into another box is no more of a disturbance to them than any normal hive inspection where you examine every frame. Plus the bees will tell you when you have moved the frame with the queen on it into the new box.....in case you missed spotting her.  

I work with a wide variety of people and some of them have back issues. Not to mention, I don't want to have back issues. So I came up with this method of working.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

TxMex said:


> Placing the frames one at a time into another box is no more of a disturbance to them than any normal hive inspection where you examine every frame.


True, but there are times when you don't need to do a frame x frame inspection. With this downward-building colony, I decided to reverse bodies when I wasn't doing a detailed inspection- saw eggs and was done - but realized that the bottom box was getting bound up. I set the full bottom box on the cover, put the empty box down, the full box on top, and put them back in privacy. 

When I just need to check comb progression, to figure out if I need another box, it's much simpler and less invasive to just lift the entire top box. 

It's more comfortable and controllable to do that with with mediums than deeps, but, obviously could be done with deeps as well. 

I think we need to avoid leaving the impression with our posts that there is only one "good" way to do anything. People who come here for advice are going to be getting it elsewhere as well. If they're getting three different "only right way" advice from two different sources, it's going to lead to unnecessary confusion and uncertainty. 

I promise, that's all I mean with so many of my "there's also this way" posts. Truly not just trying to be contrarian. 

Only semi-related, but not without some perspective value: one of my grandfathers kept bees in a traditional deep/shallow arrangement, with parts bought from catalogs. My other grandfather, who lived in such a rural part of WV, that his woodwork was often "sold" by barter and couldn't afford (in the liquidity sense) shop-made woodenware. He used all-same boxes, and foundationless-frames that I doubt were any of the standard sizes. I think he just went into it knowing the 3/8" rule, and what a langstroth looked like inside. 

In the time, I enjoyed grandpa #2's yard more, because I could lift his boxes easier, and I never got yelled at for carrying the wrong size parts up the hillside to him. In retrospect, I think his equipment was somewhere closer in size to a standard medium than a deep. 

Truthfully, that's probably the biggest reason I decided to go with mediums when I started my own. In a way, I took grandpa's advice over the four different answers I got from the three different bee keepers I asked when I got started.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

ound: Ask 5 different beekeepers the same question and you'll get 6 different answers! If folks can't deal with different opinions then this probably isn't the pursuit for them.

A lot has to do with the area of the country you are keeping bees in. In some areas things will work well that wouldn't work somewhere else. In some areas there are bee supply houses and in some areas there aren't. Everyone's honey flows are different. Different temperament of local bees. Etc. Etc.

I will continue to voice my opinion on what works for me under my particular circumstances. Someone that is reading may have similar circumstances or they may just like how I do things better.

Having spent all day yesterday moving hives full of honey by hand, and unloading the last truck full this morning....I assure you there is no virtue in an aching back. My first priority as soon as I get some queens grafted later today is going to be building pallets for my hives! I will be rolling them around from now on if at all possible!


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## Buffy in Dallas (May 10, 2002)

Thanks for the tips TxMex! I think those should work 98% of the time. 

The hive I was talking about earlier, it wouldn't have worked. It was my first Langstroth hive and my first cut-out. The hive was in a trailer, in the floor of a cabinet. I had to cut out each comb, rubber band it into a frame and put in the 8 frame super I was using. When it was full, I carried it out the front door, around the back of the trailer and set it up under the trailer where the hive entrance was. I filled 2 supers with comb. If I had had to carry each of those combs out individually, I would have keeled over dead! Thank god I was able to do almost the whole cut-out sitting down!!!

I hope that's the only time I'll have to carry a full box!


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

TxMex said:


> I will continue to voice my opinion on what works for me under my particular circumstances. Someone that is reading may have similar circumstances or they may just like how I do things better.


I apologize if I implied that I didn't think you should. You're obviously one of the most experienced beekeepers on this forum, and an asset to the board. It would be a shame if you didn't post your experience and opinions. 

I guess I was intending to make more of a generalized statement about the disservice to visitors and other beekeepers of stating things with an "only one right way" approach. It was a continuation of the tangential discussion that sprung up here about deep/shallow vs deep/deep vs medium/medium, and how it clearly illustrated that there were multiple ways to skin the proverbial cat. 

Rereading it now, I can see how, with the first part of my post being in response to one of yours, I just continued into what I intended as a separate thought, and it could seem like it was directed specifically at you. Was not the case. Sorry. 

Fortunately, I don't think we have much/any of that here, but thought the value of avoiding it was worth stating. Starting out, you're going to have to sort through several different sources and choose your own path forward. Someone coming in then with an "only one right way" attitude could leave that person second-guessing their choice/equipment/whatever at a critical time when the last thing they need is unecessary worry.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

No worries. 

I've not seen that anyone that posts here is trying to say that their way is the only correct way. Sometimes I am going to disagree with folks, and sometimes they are going to disagree with me. I think this is a good thing, as we then get to discuss why we feel that way. In so doing, it makes us look at why we do things a certain way. There have been a couple of times that I really looked at my methods and ended up improving them. Many times it is a matter of regional differences, which I feel it is important to point out. This is one reason I have my location posted.

Discussion, which sometimes looks like argument, can be the catalyst to discovery.


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## TexasHillbilly (Jan 27, 2012)

still a good read for anyone thinking about getting started with bees I'm planning to change from deep boxes and go with shallow boxes myself seeing how I'm working with just one arm from a wheelchair.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

TexasHillbilly said:


> still a good read for anyone thinking about getting started with bees I'm planning to change from deep boxes and go with shallow boxes myself seeing how I'm working with just one arm from a wheelchair.


Now that's dedication! I recently designed a shallow based hive for a cousin of mine with MD. If he still can't lift the shallow frames then I'll go ahead and cut them in half like the little mating nucleus' some breeders use. Where there is a will there is a way!!

If you are anywhere near the Tyler area and I can help let me know.


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