What are the risks of buying used equipment?
 
In two words:  American foulbrood
 
If you buy used equipment, get it fumigated by whatever means are legal in
your locality.  If you can't fumigate it, then only buy it if it has an
active colony of bees in it with no foulbrood.
 
Also, if you don't know what you are buying, you run the risk of getting
nonstandard equipment.
 
W. G. Miller
Gaithersburg, MD