How much have I spent on beekeeping?
There are a bunch of videos and articles that are like "how much does bee keeping cost?" And I feel like they vary so much. So here I will do my best to keep a record of how much I have personally spent on getting bees in my first year. I am including supplies I buy for my sister and my daughter who will be bee keeping with me.
Last updated on Feb. 26th 2026
Suits and veils: running total $330.51 😬
🐝 $64.95 kids suit from Forest Beekeeping Supply (ordered through Amazon)
🐝 $234.58 from Massive Bee Store (ordered through their website) included two adult ventilated suits, each with both a traditional round veil and the fencing style veil. One adult ventilated jacket. Two pairs of goat skin gloves. The jacket and gloves were part of a promo and were technically free, the suits I bought were $114.99 each plus taxes and shipping and all that jazz.
🐝 $30.98 for two additional round veils: the pink one for me was $16.99 and the blue one for my sister was $13.99. These are more intended just for hanging out outside, maybe if we have friends over... mostly I just thought they were cute
Hives and frames: running total $455.54 😅
🐝 $45.89 for one medium 10frame box coated in wax with a viewing window, with 10 frames with plastic foundation. From Bee Castle
🐝 $166.48 for one deep 10frame box coated with wax, with 10 frames with plastic foundation. This purchase came as a beginner set so it also included an inner cover, outer cover, bottom board, queen excluder, and a lot of tools like a suit (too thin to use), a smoker, two hive tools, some queen clips, frame holders, gloves, etc. From Bee Castle
🐝 $103.67 for another full hive set that included both a 10frame medium and deep box, both coated in wax, and 10 frames each of plastic foundation. These boxes also have the viewing windows. Along with an inner cover, outer cover, and bottom board. From Honey Lake
🐝 $139.50 for five shallow supers, untreated (will need to paint) and five sets of 10 shallow frames (so 50 frames) without foundation. From Mann Lake
Classes and bee club: running total $335
🐝 $45 for one year of household membership to MABA, our local bee club. This includes monthly meetings and access to renting honey extraction equipment and I'm sure more stuff that I haven't totaly explored yet
🐝 $250 for my sister and I to attend (that was $125 each) the MABA one day short course, Introduction to Beekeeping. I think this class was 100% worth it, it was a full day of lectures and presentations about bees and Beekeeping and we got breakfast and lunch and honey and honey based treats - it was so fun.
🐝 $40 for my daughter to attend MABA's kid's version of the bee keeping class. Her class isn't until April so I will update then, but it sounds more hands on with actual bees and she also will get to take home some honey.
Bees: running total $450
🐝 $450 for two nucs ($225 each). These are overwintered 2025 Italian queens that I am getting from another local bee keeper. He is giving them to me in two ProNuc boxes, which I looked up and those run about $25 just for the box so that seems pretty fair. He's also been really helpful in answering a bunch of my questions and making sure I have everything ready for them, which I really appreciate
Total spent YTD $1571.05
I hate knowing this actually.
