Hi All
 
I have tried to convert these prices to US$ for convenience.
 
Roof                            US$3.00
Roof plus tin top                5.60
Super chamber                     2.86
10 super frames                   3.00
Brood Chamber                    6.40
10 Brood Frames                  3.80
Floor Board                          3.00
 
queen excluder (for those interested in getting them for african bees
they are a differenct size, (a bit smaller) so only for those in the
south US I geuss)                 5.79
porter bee escapes                 1.50
nine frame spacers                 0.43
smokers 210mm fire box       21.00
bee brushes (I have one of these. They are made out of some or other
beautiful tropical wood and are incredibly soft in the brush sense)
                                                4.04
Bee gloves (I also have a set of these and they are made with that
old time craftmanship that one only sees in places like Zim nowadays,
where somebody can spend three hours making a glove type of thing)
                                                 8.25
Bee proof veils                          17.00
Jacket to go with veil                 12.38
 
This veil and jacket system work in an interesting way with a hardhat
as the top of the veil and a very tight attachment system to get the
jacket to fit. I know that the jacket was inspired after the
designer, Zimbabwes Chief Apiculturist had an incident in which his
veil slipped during treatment of some hives which had tasted a bit of
crop dusting. He picked up in excess of 50 stings to the neck and
vowed to develop a genuinely bee proof veil. The only downside of
this veil is that it gets very hot inside the gauze as the heat from
your chest floats up and anybody that uses glasses comes under strain
as they fog up.
 
hive tools                   7.53
catch boxes (5 frame nucs actually)
                                    10.90
 
strip eyelets (1100 to a kg)       11.42 a kg
 
brood wax per 10 sheets            7.89
 
And here's a funny bit:
 
Bees wax blocks (1 oz)               0.44
 
but casting and cleaning one ounce beeswax blocks costs 1.19 a kg?
 
These wax products are however not really suitable for people raising
european bees as the cell size is a bit wrong. The bees will draw it
but you will have funny size bees.
 
They offer an export discount of 10% as well.
 
Out of interest I phoned the railways to find out how much it would
cost to get the stuff the two thousand odd kilometers from Harare too
any of our bigger  ports here in SA and they will be getting back too
me at some point.  Still have to find out what the shipping costs
are but this seems more complex that it used too be. I know  we once
sent a rail crate to canada and that was quite easy.
 
Looking at the  prices in US$ I really wished  I earned in US$. Wow.
 
I  actually think these prices are quite expensive in some ways
compared to making ones own equipment. I find  that  to make a  hive,
excluding labour costs and frames with wax costs me about US$2.60 (we
have a small sawmill nearby and I make  the aluminium cover  out of
aluminium printing sheets from the local printers  which cost
justabout nothing.) The wax  pays foor itself,  because to  get one
out of  three swarms one has  to  remove a lot of comb with it  and
that comb melted down and milled does the new hives demand.
 
So  that's what it costs to set  up a  hive here for me  excluding
the  labour  costs  and  the cost of driving around to  get  the
bees. In  Rand it  looks  far more expensive.
 
Keep well and I hope this is of interest. Would be interesting to see
what  the  costs are for bits  and pieces elsewhere  as well.
 
These are for standard  langstroth hives.
 
Garth
 
 
---
Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800ml annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology    Rhodes University
In general, generalisations are bad.
Interests: Flii's and Bees.