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http://www.mahakobees.com – NEW VIDEO.

Beekeeper GLOVES REVIEW – Beekeeping 101 Bee equipment

Beekeeping supplies offer many options for hand protection against bee stings. Leather beekeepers gloves are one of the most popular, but often bee keepers choose to use rubber gloves, work gloves, or work leather gloves. These don;t offer a new beekeeper enough protection whilst they build up confidence looking after their beehives and bee colonies. Beekeeping supply stores usually have two or three options. We look at these in the video but also look at some other, much cheaper options that many use. We prefer to handle our bees without beekeeping gloves all together, but there are times that you simply need to put them on for protection. If the weather is unfavorable, or the bees are agitated in the beehive for other reasons, you are best advised to put the gloves to be on the safe side. Sadly, when wearing leather beekeeping gloves, the beekeeper immediately looses much of their finger control and many more bees usually die during the apiary visit and bee hive inspections, especially if you are inspecting and manipulating all the frames. All the bee keeper can do, is take extra care to minimize the unnecessary bee deaths.

Bee gloves vary in price greatly. The quality goats leather or softened cow hide beekeeping gloves, with long ventilated sleeves and an elastic band will cost about $25 dollars or more. The cheapest option in a proper beekeeping glove would be around the $15 dollar range, which uses synthetics. And then you have the other styles of gloves, such as worker gloves, gardening gloves, dish washing gloves, or just very simple food preparation rubber gloves that can and do provide limited protection, which can be as cheap as a dollar or two. These provide only minimal protection, but they at least keep your hands clean from honey, beeswax and propolis. Bees will usually sting right through these.

So, in closing, we recommend all new beekeepers to purchase the full sleeve length beekeepers gloves, and in our view, the best gloves are leather, ventilated, and softened. The extra $10 dollars is well worth the investment. The gloves will protect your hands against bee stings almost 100%, and they will last many years to come. 

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