2 posts tagged “books”

OK, so its been a while since the last update.  That by no means indicates that the bee thing was a passing fad.  I have been doing an enormous amount of reading.  Many of the books I have been reading have been from the marvelous E. F. Phillips Collection at Cornell University.  These books may be old, but bees are essentially unchanged in millions of years so a lot of the content is still relevant today.  The online collection has been formed with two guiding priorities: books that have historical relevance and books that are of practical use to today's apiculturist.  Many of the books they have published online fit both categories; aside from the frequent sermons and switching to latin for the description of reproduction Langstroth's book is still as relevant today as it was then.  Other highlights are A. I. Root's ABC of Bee Culture and C. C. Miller's 50 years among the bees.  T. W. Cowan's "The Honey Bee" is also well worth a look if you are into bee biology.  I haven't quite brought myself to read Huber or Dzierzon yet.  They are the definitive works on honeybee biology; however many other books have summarised their findings.  I'll probably get around to them eventually.  I've heard that ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture is due for a long awaited new revision early next year.  If the first edition is anything to go by then I definitely want to pick up a copy.

More current information includes the Scottish Beekeepers Association's The Basics of Beekeeping: an excellent free beginners guide.  Some of it has a particular Scottish focus (taking hives to the heather, more focus on the Smith hive than most sources) but it is all relevant.  As it was updated in 2006 the pests/diseases section is more up to date than most books and well worth a read.

There are a lot of other sites I've been looking at.  Take a look at my del.ico.us links tagged with beekeeping for a selection of my favourites.

So in summary:  I'm not dead.  I'm not bored with bees.  I've just been incredibly busy reading.

I also went to my second meeting of the St Albans BKA.  The annual honey tasting event and social.  A very interesting evening, got to sample 12 different local honeys as well as a couple of curiosities that people had brought along.  Very enjoyable.

There seemed to be quite a few new members like myself in attendance and it seems that the beginners course in February is going to be pretty full booked.  As far as I'm concerned that can't be a bad thing.  You don't see anywhere near as many bees in the garden these days as you used to when I was a kid; and that can't be good for pollination.

I went along to my first meeting of the St Albans Bee Keeping Association last week (my local association affiliated with the Hertfordshire Bee Keepers Association).  The online advice to join your local association is definitely well founded and I think I came along to a pretty good meeting to start with too.  The topic was a review of the year and was largely to talk to the new members at the end of their first season to share their experiences and any lessons they've learnt and also to ask questions about maintaining their colonies through the winter.  Very informative.

One of the more experienced members kicked things off by bringing along a recent purchase to show;  a plastic Miller type feeder from Thorne's.  A cheap but durable alternative to a traditional cedar feeder that won't suffer from leaks due to wood shrinking during the dry summer.  Can also be used for letting the bees clean up the cappings after harvesting.  Looks well worth it and I'll probably get a couple once I have hives up and running.  The plastic feeders are just an insert that need to be rested inside something.  Thorne's also have ekes for this at reasonable prices.
Glad I did plenty of reading.  I understood everything the speakers were talking about at the meeting and so managed to take quite a lot from it without having to ask any embarassing newbie questions (not that there would have been any embarassment envolved, questions from other newcomers were answered patiently and without a trace of condescention.

I am certainly going to be signing up as a full member and will be putting my name down for their new beekeepers course starting in February as soon as I get the details in the post.  The course syllabus looks pretty good.  Stuff I've read about but which will have a whole new dimension when explained by someone with experience willing and able to answer questions.

A few book recommendations from a new bee keeper who has read a lot but has no practical experience yet:
I've already linked to Teach Yourself Beekeeping.  A good intro which I found very useful.  Will probably not get much reading after my first season or so of practical experience due to the fact that they are trying to cover so much while still keeping it accessible to the beginner.  Has a good index though, so perfectly capable of being a longer term reference book.

Other recommendations are:

Guide to Bees and Honey

Seems to be the default recommended reference work for a lot of associations.  A drier read than the Teach yourself book, but once you're over the initial learning curve this one has more staying power due to the greater depth of detail.

Beekeeping Study Notes: "BASIC Cetificate", "SBKA Basic Beemaster Certificate", "FIBKA Preliminary C

I plan on taking the basic certificate next year after I've been running a hive for a year (the recommended time to take the certificate) so I have bought a copy of the official study notes.

The Bee Friendly Garden: Bring Bees to Your Flowers, Orchard, and Vegetable Patch