Beekeeping for Beginners: How To Raise Your First Bee Colonies

A gift they loved it loose leaf item

Two other books I bought were long-winded and lacked focus. It was as if the authors were more interested in impressing the reader than educating them. This book is short and to the point. I started my first hive and everything is going well. You can’t ask for a better endorsement than that.

I bought this book and The Beekeeper’s Handbook (fifth ed.)In my opinion these two books are enough to get you started. But I’m a NEWBIE BEEKEEPER so my opinion doesn’t REALLY count for much.The book focuses on how to raise your first colonies. The requirements, pit falls and Seasonal Maintenance. (Did YOU know that you can’t just pop bees into a wooden box and come back in six months expecting clean perfect honey and healthy bees? Did YOU know that if you set them up and walk away they will die without regulars feeding and maintenance?) yeah…me too…I watched all the same YouTube videos before buying my bees! But this book fills in the little naggy details that you REALLY NEED TO KNOW in order to have success and not get discouraged by finding a pile of dead bees. This addresses predators. If you live rural like I do you know that neighboring farms offer a plethora of naughty dogs that will come and bust up your hives and eat all the honey. We all know about the Varroa Mites an Small Hive Beetles…we bought the traps and the other stuff we will need….but what about the LARGE PESTS?! Here the book could have spent a few moments reminding us all that Deer, Bear, Dogs, Raccoons, skunks, squirrels, Coyote, HUMANS Large Birds of Prey and Mountain Lions are all potential predators that endanger your bee hives, bees and honey. These are PRACTICAL concerns (that can mostly bee solved by buying a $25.00 welded 16’ long Cattle Panel and wiring the ends together to form an 8’ circle of protection around your hive. It can simply be pushed on it’s side when you need into the hive and the bees won’t even notice it! (That’s MY appendix to this already GREAT book!)This book is VERY basic. It is TRULY the first book a beginner with NO Knowledge of bees and beekeeping SHOULD START WITH! Never Underestimate the Stupidity of YOURSELF when rushing in to a project that you have never tried before! You will miss stuff. IMPORTANT STUFF!For everything else up the BeeKeepers Handbook (the Bible of Beekeeping really) an look for the Barefoot Beekeepers seminal work for beeginners..”The Barefoot Beekeeper”.Well, that’s it..quit reading and hit the ‘Buy Now’ button if you are serious about beekeeping for the first time….or you just want a cheap education on why you shouldn’t. This book will answer all the most basic questions of every beginner starting with empty boxes and a mind filled with wonder.

The book is set up like the new books for middle school, for me it is a bit hard to just read and learn. There are things that are described in the book that should have detail drawings just understand what the author was talking about. I guess it would make the book a bit longer, the limited detailed drawing and photos needing detailed arrows with explanations I need to buy a few other books. It should have a list of government agencies at the end of the book to allow people to seek indepth help from. The book does tell the reader to find these places for in depth help.The book does have great advise for people that like honey bees, and honey, but never had any hives. The book was a great first book to get one to read more. What was written above was a point that if it was more detail oriented I would not need to read as many other books on the same subject.IF YOU ARE LIKE ME, HAVING NEVER WORKED / OWNED ANY BEE HIVES: THIS BOOK IS A GREAT START!!!!I WOULD BUY THIS BOOK AGAIN AND PLAN TO DO JUST THAT: GET A FEW FOR FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, AND FAMILY TO HELP THEM IN SUPPORTING THE SAVING AND HELPING OF BEES AND THEIR BEE-COLONIES.

Easy to read, thorough and appropriate information. Definitely recommend if you want a good foundational knowledge base.

I considered this as a hobby. This book talked me out of it...!

I highly recommend this book for beginners, so much so that I purchased a second copy and shipped it to my dad. Unlike the other books I have seen this one comes with a glossary of the terms so you can read and understand what she is talking about without any research of basic terminology. It is already included for you! If you are interested in learning about beekeeping and don't know where to start here is the best, simplest read I have seen. It gives a chapter on how to find local organizations and apps to help you know what is appropriate for your climate. What sites to look up local laws to keep you on the right side of the law and so much information that helped me figure out where to start and improvements to make. Wish I had found this book the 1st time I tried beekeeping. Long story short it was a huge expensive failure that can only be chalked up to not doing enough research prior to buying and setting up. Lesson learned. This book walks you through step by step instructions and I feel better prepared for the next time I try to set up some hives.

I just read this book in it's entirety. I will say I enjoyed it and it is very well written. If you are getting into beekeeping and want to learn, this book is for you. I am brand new to beekeeping and have done a lot of research with reading and videos and this book really put's it together in an easy to read format that will not bore you. Well done Amber. Thanks for reading. Would recommend.