Product Description

Now updated — your guide to becoming a successful backyard beekeeper

Interested in raising honey bees? This friendly, practical guide presents a step–by–step approach to starting your own beehive, along with expert tips for maintaining a healthy colony. You get the latest on honey bee medication and treatments, harvesting and marketing your honey, and the impact the sudden disappearance of the honey bee has on our environment and economy.

• To bee or not to bee? — understand the benefits of beekeeping and whether it′s right for you

• Build your first hive — gather the right equipment, obtain your bees, and transfer them safely to their new home

• Get up–close and personal — see how to open and close the hive, inspect your bees at the right times, and know what to look for

• Handle common problems — from swarming to robbing to pesticide poisoning, find simple solutions

• Understand Colony Collapse Syndrome — learn what you can do to help save the honey bees

• Gear up for the golden harvest — use the tools of the trade to extract honey, store it, and sell it

Praise for Beekeeping For Dummies

"The information a beginner needs to keep bees with confidence."
— Kim Flottum, Bee Culture Magazine

"A reader–friendly guide to beekeeping for novices or beginners."
— Dewey M. Caron, Professor of Entomology, University of Delaware

Open the book and find:

• The various types of honey bees and the role each plays in a colony

• Hands–on instruction in building a hive

• How to keep bees healthier and more productive

• Guidelines for all phases of honey production

• New information on raising your own queens

• Plenty of helpful, illustrative pictures to guide you

• The safest ways to inspect and enjoy your bees

• A Beekeeper′s Calendar organized by climate zones

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5850 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

From the Back Cover

Now updated — your guide to becoming a successful backyard beekeeper

Interested in raising honey bees? This friendly, practical guide presents a step–by–step approach to starting your own beehive, along with expert tips for maintaining a healthy colony. You get the latest on honey bee medication and treatments, harvesting and marketing your honey, and the impact the sudden disappearance of the honey bee has on our environment and economy.

• To bee or not to bee? — understand the benefits of beekeeping and whether it′s right for you

• Build your first hive — gather the right equipment, obtain your bees, and transfer them safely to their new home

• Get up–close and personal — see how to open and close the hive, inspect your bees at the right times, and know what to look for

• Handle common problems — from swarming to robbing to pesticide poisoning, find simple solutions

• Understand Colony Collapse Syndrome — learn what you can do to help save the honey bees

• Gear up for the golden harvest — use the tools of the trade to extract honey, store it, and sell it

Praise for Beekeeping For Dummies

"The information a beginner needs to keep bees with confidence."
— Kim Flottum, Bee Culture Magazine

"A reader–friendly guide to beekeeping for novices or beginners."
— Dewey M. Caron, Professor of Entomology, University of Delaware

Open the book and find:

• The various types of honey bees and the role each plays in a colony

• Hands–on instruction in building a hive

• How to keep bees healthier and more productive

• Guidelines for all phases of honey production

• New information on raising your own queens

• Plenty of helpful, illustrative pictures to guide you

• The safest ways to inspect and enjoy your bees

• A Beekeeper′s Calendar organized by climate zones

About the Author

Howland Blackiston has more than 20 years′ experience keeping bees. He has written many articles on beekeeping and appeared on dozens of television and radio programs, including CNBC, CNN, NPR, and Sirius Satellite Radio. Blackiston has been a keynote speaker at conferences in more than 40 countries.

Customer Reviews

Warning - Bears
This is a super book, I am a beginer and although this book is limited in detail it is idea for the beginer.

This book concentrates on one type of Hive, the lanstroth, which world wide is the most popular hive, but in the UK most beekeepers use the national, but this make no diffrence at all they are based on the same principals.

It gives you practical advice, on silly things that you dont want to ask, i.e. how do you start your smoker and, what is a smoker.

The book is very easy to read and comprehensive, for keeping bees on a small scale this is the book I would happily recormend, and fequently refer to.

If you do really get into bees the British Bee Keepers (to whom i now belong) recormended reading - Ted Hoopers Bees & honey. This is the next stage, this book covers everything there is, although again you will find that most of the bee keepers will frequently disagree with both books.

Oh and the bears, this is refered to as a common problem it appears that bears do like honey. The book is rather clear on this that you should protect your hives from bears.

Great but avoid as american
This is a well written book, has some great pictures (really), is easy to read and is informative, BUT:
If this is the only book you read on bee keeping then you will really come unstuck as some much of the language, equipment, contacts and so on are only valid for America. You actually only get to read half a book as there is something on every page that does apply to the UK. In case you don't know UK bee keeping let me give you a list:
- The UK uses different types of hives to the US, and there are different options in the UK and you need to know what they are
- There system for keeping their hives is different to the UK
- In the US they sell bees in 3lb packages with a queen, in the UK bees tend to come in Nucleus, or from swarms
- All the information about the BBKA, local associations etc is wrong/missing
- Their seasons, flowers, crops and so on are different to ours
- Their support systems for disease and inspection is different
- They ventilate their hives differently
- and so on.

So you can read and enjoy this book but please dont make it the first and only one you read. And if you know anything about keeping bees in the UK you will find yourself filtering the American stuff out all the time.

Beekeeping for Dummies
I always thought that the Howells series were for techno dudes. So I was amazed to see this title. And what an excellent surprise it is. This is one of the best guides to the keeping of bees, anywhere in the world, I've read. It's informative, honest, helpful and entertaining. Thus making bee keeping an achievable and enjoyable pastime. Everyone should read this, even if you don't ever get the bees.