It so happens that my birthday is the day after Christmas, so I always get a little extra excited around December.

This year my family is pretty excited that I'm getting into beekeeping, and they wanted to help me get into action with a few new tools!

I now have a handy toolbox to keep my gear, smoker, tools, medicine, etc., in.





When I was asked what sort of tools I needed, I pointed them in the direction of several different tools I had my eye on, and to my surprise, they bought them both!

One can never have too many tools!



The tool on the left is a standard hive tool. The tool on the right is a little more harder to find, and is sometimes called a "J Hook" or "Frame Lifter" tool.

When I was watching an inspection with my mentor John, he was showing me how easy it is to use the J Hook /Frame Lifter tool to slip the hook part of the tool in between the frames sideways, and then rotate it so that it was perpendicular to the frames, and then rock the tool back on the 90 degree corner (to the right of the "J" part of the tool) and pry up frames without smashing bees.