The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden

by Kim Flottum

This book isn't just a guide to beekeeping or a honey cookbook - it's both. No other book on the market provides an in-depth review of beekeeping and explains what honey is good for you and how to use it. Beautifully illustrated, Complete and Easy Guide to Beekeeping is perfect for the health conscious person who wants to sweeten up their life by saying no to processed sugars and yes to eating organic, healthy food. This book is the complete 'honey bee' resource with general information on bees; a how-to guide to the art of beekeeping and how to set up, care for and harvest your own hives. It also includes tons of fun facts and projects that are beerelated. The second half of the book is the complete guide to honey. It reviews the different types of honey and their health effects and provides hundreds of ideas for using honey in recipes, cosmetically in facemasks and shampoos, and for medicinal uses.

• ISBN13: 9781592531189
• Publish Date: 1 May 2005
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 16 June 2005
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Rockport Publishers Inc.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 168
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Backyard Beekeeper, 5th Edition is a well written easy to understand reference for beekeeping by (sadly recently departed) Kim Flottum. Due out 27th Feb 2024 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 256 pages (paperback) and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. Material originally published in 2005, this is an updated and reformatted re-release.

The author is an experienced beekeeper and USDA researcher and this book is full of well thought out and sensible advice for sustainable and successful beekeeping from starting to more advanced techniques. The book is divided into chapters: an introduction with the main concepts and anatomical features of honeybees, along with the tools & supplies in the apiarist's toolbox, detailed housing needs, lots of info on honey, troubleshooting and problems, beeswax, and a lot of good info on best practice. 

The photography throughout is in color and is very clear and professionally rendered. The photo captions are easy to understand and relevant. The information here -could- be used to get started with beekeeping in the absence of a tutor or more experienced beekeeper friend, however, it's always recommended to cultivate resources and friends in the beekeeping community (we *love* bees and "newbees") and beekeepers are generally the most helpful people to be found and love sharing the hobby with others.

The author/publisher have also included a short resources and links lists aimed mostly at readers located in North America, as well as a cross-referenced index.

Beekeeping is such a rewarding and fascinating hobby and improving the health of our own biodiverse environment aids everyone from locally to globally. This is an information dense and layman accessible guide. It would make a good selection for public or school library use, home/smallhold library, makers groups, allotment and community garden groups, and similar.

Four and a half stars. Very well done.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.