Keeping Bees and Making Honey

Love this book, has great info for a novice beekeeper. Can't wait to get started this coming winter so I can have bees next spring and will be eating honey by next summer.

Althought this text is not Dadant approved/published, it is a very comprehensive and informative guide for beginning honey beekeeping that gives the new apiarist all they need to know to get started and through their 2nd season.

When I retire in a few years I wanted to find a hobby which would be ecologically beneficial and potentially financially rewarding. I thought about beekeeping and sought out an introductory book. This one has some valuable lessons, good information, and a realistic slant on what commitment you need as a beekeeper.

This is a beautifully produced book with some really excellent photography; it should be mandatory to furnish dentist's waiting rooms with at least one copy (not only would it successfully distract the patients, but we'd also end up with more beekeepers in the world... and all of them with good teeth). The text is informative and straightforward (although I did find the chapter sequencing a little puzzling and personally would have preferred to see the gardening, honey and products chapters shuffled to the back and all of the essential beekeeping information consolidated). I found the chapter on gardening for bees to be especially interesting and relevant though, along with the plant-to-honey-type cross-reference table, and have been diligently planting seeds to provide my hives with some early spring blooms based on that content. The beekeeping information is as up to date as you'd expect for a 2008 book with, for instance, a reference to dusting the bees with icing sugar as a method for controlling mite infestation. Although not perhaps as comprehensive as Sammataro and Avitabile's "The Beekeepers Handbook", the photography and sections on an introduction to beekeeping certainly compensate. U.K. readers especially will appreciate the references and use throughout the book of the familiar WBC, double-walled hive. This is an engaging book on several levels. The first and most obvious is as a coffee-table book which will interest young and old alike. Secondly, it's a great source of well illustrated information for the novice, or yet to be, beekeeper. For the more experienced, it's one of those books which is nice to have to hand to show to friends and neighbours (or anyone taking an interest in your bees). It has content which will also appeal to the gardener and to the city dweller, as well as to anyone interested in ecology and the environment. An excellent buy.

Great book for beginning beekeepers! Loads of info on bees,starting out with bees, and bee products. Answers to questions that I hadn't even thought to ask!