I started the opposite way from Efmesch. I did it on a spur of a moment. Was driving down the road by Perry's uncle Leos house, Honey house and he was out in the yard so stopped and asked what it took to get a hive of bees? He let me know that his son Ernie would be coming thru with another load of package bees the following week. Showed me what I would need Bottom board, Super, Frames, Inner cover, Top cover, Feed pail, Sold me 20 sheets of foundation, gave me enough wire to cross wire the frames, and told me the bees would be there next week to pick up. 5 days. He gave me a top, bottom, and end bar, for templates to take with me so I could machine and manufacture the frames. 5 days later I went back to pick up a package. He had an extra that hadn't been picked up so I went home with 2. Installed the 2 packages with out protective gear and no smoker. built a smoker and an extractor the first year. My dads mom, as well as my wifes grand father on her dads side kept bees. They were not much help as all my dad could remember was knocking the hive over with the one wheel of the rake and then getting the wheel on the other side hooked behind the gate post when using the drop rake with a team of horses. And my wifes father was not much more help as he only remembers having to go out and set the hives back up after being knocked over by a cow
Learned by observing what was happening in the hives. never read a book till 1/2 way through the 2nd year. Didn't know about a local bee club until the spring of the 5th year. Mind you I have always been a just do it and figure it out as you go along. type of person.
I do believe it is possible to get to many theories and ways to do it and it can make the whole process more challenging and confusing than it needs to be. It is good to have a mentor in your area that has good success with his bees and keep your bees the way he keeps his. Once you learn how to keep bees one way then you can experiment with other systems and techniques to develop your own way of beekeeping.