Thinking About Your Beekeeping Supply Chain

If you’d never heard the term “supply chains” before the pandemic, you’ve probably heard it plenty by now. One of the lingering effects of the pandemic shutdown is that materials, parts, and goods are a lot harder to get (and more expensive to ship) than they used to be. We’ve been working hard at Betterbee to make sure that we can provide you with the beekeeping supplies you need, right when you need them.

Even when the price of lumber went through the roof, we made sure we had enough on-hand to keep making frames and hive bodies to house your bees. When a manufacturer can’t supply us with glass honey bottles of the right size, we work with other manufacturers to fill in the gaps. It would be nice if this was temporary, but it’s looking like some of these delays and manufacturing complexities will be with us for a while yet. Betterbee is here to work with you so you and your bees can get whatever they need, whenever they need it.

Beekeeping supply chain management strategies

Just like a strong healthy hive stocks up on the things they need like honey and pollen, is the “supply chain” between your garage and your hives as healthy as it should be? Do you always keep a stock of the equipment, materials, and medications that your bees will need in the near future?

We receive phone calls over and over each year that go like this: “I’m going away on vacation for two weeks, but I think my bees have too many mites. What’s the earliest you can get me a mite treatment?” Since we can’t teleport the medications right to you (yet), we know that those bees are going to have to suffer through high mite levels until at least the end of their beekeeper’s vacation to Aruba. If only these beekeepers had those critical mite treatments on-hand, their bees would be healthier and more likely to survive into the next year. 

What beekeeping supplies do you need?

Stocking up on supplies that you know you’ll need later prevents all of those headaches and frustrations if the supplies wind up back-ordered or delayed in the postal system. If your colony needs something, the more steps involved in getting it to them means more chances for something to be delayed.

Stock these must-have supplies and equipment so you have them right away, no last-minute scrambling necessary:

• Essential safety gear, including gloves, veils, a smoker, and smoker fuel
• Bee health supplies, including mite and pest management solutions
• Bee feeders and feed, in case supplementing is necessary
• Spare hive components, including mouse guard, entrance reducer, robber screen, hive covers, frames, nails, and related hardware
• Additional electric fencing supplies, such as netting, ground wire, or clamps, to fix damage right away
• An extra hive tool, set of hive straps, and any beekeeping tools you prefer using
• Replacement gaskets and parts for honey processing equipment in case of breakage during harvest

Lessons in supply chain management

In a way, the life of a honey bee colony is all about supply chains. We’ve taken a look at how hives thrive, even when resources may be hard to come by, and have drawn inspiration from their dedication.

Learning from the bees

Specialized foragers collect nectar, pollen, water, and resin. These resources are passed to other bees in the hive, processed, and then stored for later use. 

Some materials, like water, are used almost immediately in the hive. Water-receiver bees, sometimes called “water bottle bees,” fill up with water and then dispense it to thirsty bees or spread it in cells to help cool the hive. The honey bee water supply chain must always be moving new water into the hive from outside. Even in winter, when it’s too cold for your bees to fly, they will collect and drink the water that has condensed from the colony’s breath on the walls of the hive. 

Some materials are stored for both the long term and short term. In the summer, bees collect pollen and use it to feed a constant stream of new brood to provide the colony with more workers. At these times, the bees use most of the pollen they collect quite quickly, keeping only a moderate reserve.

Other times of year, like the autumn, the bees pack and store their pollen securely so that they can use it months later to raise the first batch of spring workers. If they didn’t have this pollen available, their population would dwindle and they wouldn’t be able to feed new brood until the crocuses and pussywillows started to open. Bees will use pollen when they know there’s plenty more outside—but also stock up on pollen when they know it will be hard to come by in the future.

Some materials are mostly stored for the long term, like nectar that is ripened into honey. The bees don’t wait until they need honey to start storing honey. Their ancestors only survived if they started collecting nectar and manufacturing honey each spring, and continued right up until the last nectar flow of the year. Our bees build up their surplus of honey when it’s easy to find nectar so that they’ll have it on hand when nectar can’t be found anywhere. The bees “know” that the winter is coming each year, so their instincts drive them to be prepared.

Over and over, the bees teach us the same lesson: If you know something will be easy to get, you can always get it at the last minute. If you know it might be hard to get something later, it’s better to get it now and have it in reserve for the day you need it. Your bees can easily live through a “nectar dearth” because they plan ahead and store what they’ll need.

Learning from the past

Many of us humans were completely unprepared for the “toilet paper dearth,” or the “hand sanitizer dearth,” or the “lumber dearth” that this pandemic produced. If we don’t learn from our mistakes and emulate the bees, we may be hit just as hard the next time we need something that the stores can’t keep in stock.

We do the same thing every year here at Betterbee. We work hard manufacturing feeder pails all winter, so that they will be available to help you feed your bees in the spring. We stock up on honey jars in June, so that we can have them available for your harvest in August. It’s just smart planning to anticipate your needs and make sure you have the materials and supplies ready before you need them, so that you won’t have to panic later if you can’t order them with next-day shipping.

Of course, we have to be careful when we take lessons from nature, and we shouldn’t emulate the bees in every way. Keep in mind that our bees also have a “Plan B” (or is that “Plan Bee”?) in case they don’t store enough honey for the winter: They can just rob honey from a weaker colony nearby. No matter how bad the next shortage is, please don’t raid the neighboring beekeeper’s shed to steal their mite treatments or smoker fuel! Get more tips from beekeeping experts in our Beekeeper Guide.