Product Description

A fascinating hobby; a remunerative business; or a globetrotting career? Which type of beekeeper do you want to be? It is entirely up to you: beekeeping can provide it all.Beekeeping can provide anyone with an interesting and useful hobby or a lucrative and rewarding business. It is recognised as a vital agricultural industry and can therefore also offer you a globe trotting career. The whole subject is, however, often shrouded in mystery and loaded with jargon, leaving many people unaware of its true potential or how to start. This book strips away all the mystery and explains step by step how - from day one - you can start beekeeping as a hobby; how you can progress to running a beekeeping business; or how you can start a career as a beekeeper which can quite easily take you all over the world. No other guide explains in such detail the true potential and accessibility of beekeeping or of being a beekeeper.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5686 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
This book lives up to its title. An excellent book to get you started, with plenty for the experienced beekeeper. --Smallholder March 2009

From the Author
In many countries, beekeeping has often been regarded as the domain of vaguely eccentric elderly men and women who potter about in their bee clothing with their stinging insects, whereas in fact beekeeping is a dynamic global industry worth literally billions of pounds, euros and dollars and is of strategic interest to governments worldwide. Because of this importance, it offers young men and women (or older ones as well) a fantastic globe trotting career as a beekeeper, scientist, biologist or business owner and so not only does this book tell you how to keep bees but also how you too can benefit from what I reckon is a life changing interest in these amazing insects. If you are wondering what to do in life and are just starting out or have come to a crossroads in your life where you need something more, or if you simply want a hobby that exercises your mind, why not have a go. You won't regret it. It's all in the book. I took it up in my early 40s and never looked back.

About the Author
David Cramp started beekeeping as a hobby in 1991 before spending a year at the Bee Research Unit at Cardiff University. He started a beekeeping company in Spain, producing organic honey, and after 12 years moved with his wife and two daughters to New Zealand to manage a 4000 hive operation, specialising in pollination and manuka honey. David writes for the beekeeping press in the UK, the USA and Spain and is the author of the Beekeeper's Field Guide. He edits the online beekeeping magazine Apis UK and is now starting his own honey bee queen rearing business.

Customer Reviews

Straight forward advice
I bought this book and have read it cover to cover. There isn't much in here that you wouldn't get in other beekeeping books but the way it is written has made this the most useful bee book I have read so far. The author is an experienced beekeeper who has tried everything and he just tells you what works (and is honest about where he went wrong). The style is easy to read, there is no waffle, just the nuts and bolts. It really is a practical manual. I have several other beekeeping books but this one will be my reference from now on- the others will be the back up. The illustrations are limited, as are the photos, I would like to have seen more. The book seems mostly written for the UK but has advice suited to other locations too (the author has kept bees commercially in Spain and New Zealand). Highly recommended to beginner and journeyman beekeepers.

Easy to read, very comprehensive and written by an expert
I have kept bees commercially in South America and New Zealand for many years and I didn't think that any new beekeeping book would teach me much more about beekeeping. However a colleague recommended 'A Practical manual of Beekeeping' and I'm very glad that I read it. I learned an enormous amount. What other beekeeping manual will tell you how to safely make invert sugar syrup, or how to easily test for HMF levels in your own honey or how to test for Nosema in the field and David Cramp introduces bee genetics in a way that even I can understand - and there is so much more it is that comprehensive. Certainly no other book that I have read (and I have read most) has so much useful, practical, up to date and science based information on beekeeping. I really recommend it for both experienced and novice beekeepers whether commercial or hobbyists. It is easy to read, very comprehensive, written with humour and written by a very experienced and knowledgeable beekeeper and like the same authors 'Beekeepers Field Guide' this book will stay by my side while I continue beekeeping.

A cracking good read.
Living in France and studying apiculture in french we decided that we needed a good book written in english to bolster our some what saggy french. I thought I would have to plough through A Practical Manual Of Beekeeping but found that I could not put it down and read it cover to cover in 3 days. It is comprehensive, honest and written with humour. Reading David Cramp's book has confirmed our decision to keep bees.