Beekeeping For Dummies Author: Visit Amazon's Howland Blackiston Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0470430656 | Format: PDF
Beekeeping For Dummies Description
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.
- Paperback: 392 pages
- Publisher: For Dummies; 2nd edition (March 16, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0470430656
- ISBN-13: 978-0470430651
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
"Beekeeping For Dummies"
by Howland Blackiston
Book Review by Jay Gilbertson
Though I would hardly suggest that if you are indeed a beekeeper, that you're a dummy, for me this wonderful book was just the right place to begin a new (and really sticky) hobby. Since author Howland Blackiston has been an actual beekeeper for over 20 years, I felt that alone was enough proof that the guy knows his bees. Boy does he!
The layout of this particular beekeeping guide was the real deal-clincher when trying to find the one-and-only. There's an enormous collection to choose from and since this is truly my first stab at beekeeping, this book laid out a practical foundation. Blackiston takes you through the process from picking up your bees, to setting up a bee apiary (or bee yard), observing your hive from spring through summer, to fall honey harvesting and wintertime's slumber. Of course, Blackiston reminds you, that though the bees rarely leave the hive in the winter, the worker bees are working like crazy to keep the queen warm and make sure her every need is met.
One of the many great surprises about Blackiston's approach was that throughout the book he tosses in a great deal of history as well as oodles of useful hints and advice from just where to put your hive, to different methods of harvesting honey, to properly tucking in your hive(s) for winter. Some of the more interesting facts are that beekeeping has been around for at least 5 thousand years, yet not until October 30, 1851 did the actual practice of beekeeping become a more standardized, and thus teachable, trade/hobby due to a fellow named Langstroth. Reverend Landstroth was the one responsible for devising the interchangeable hives that are still in use today.
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