The Backyard Beekeeper, 4th Edition: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden

by Kim Flottum

Overview

The Backyard Beekeeper, now in its 4th edition, makes the time-honored and complex tradition of beekeeping an enjoyable and accessible backyard pastime for urban and rural beekeepers of all skill levels.

More than a guide to beekeeping, this handbook features expert advice for:

• Setting up and caring for your own colonies
• Selecting the best location to place your new bee colonies for their safety and yours
• The most practical and nontoxic ways to care for your bees
• Swarm control
• Using top bar hives
• Harvesting the products of a beehive and collecting and using honey
• Bee problems and treatments

What’s New?

• Information for urban bees and beekeepers
• Using your smoker the right way
• Better pest management
• Providing consistent and abundant good food
• Keeping your hives healthy

With this complete resource and the expert advice of Bee Culture editor Kim Flottum, your bees will be healthy, happy, and more productive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631593321
Publisher:	Quarry Books
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Edition description:	4th ed.
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	126,817
Product dimensions:	8.12(w) x 10.12(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Kim Flottum (d. 2023) brought a rich background of plant science, honey bee research, and basic farming to his 30 years as the editor of Bee Culture magazine, where his main occupation was finding the answers to the multitude of questions that beginning, intermediate, and even advanced and experienced beekeepers bring to the table. He taught beginning and advanced beekeeping courses, traveled extensively to educate and lecture, and contributed to a variety of other publications on the basics of honey bees and beekeeping biology, the business of bees and pollination, producing and using varietal honeys, and a host of other subjects. He was the author of The Backyard Beekeeper, First Time Beekeeping, In Business with Bees, and Common Sense Natural Beekeeping. His books, magazine articles, interviews, and blogs are widely read for both their fundamental and advanced contribution to beekeeping knowledge. He was beekeeping’s leading advocate for fundamental honey bee safety, including ensuring excellent honey bee health, providing extraordinary forage, and minimizing the use of agricultural pesticides.

Editorial Reviews

Kim Flottum’s expert advice is a comprehensive introduction to getting started with your own backyard hives. The book itself is also visually appealing: large photographs, illustrations, and callouts appear on nearly every page.”—Keeping Backyard Bees

“A stunningly beautiful and wonderfully thorough guidebook for the beginning beekeeper.”—Thomas D. Seeley, author of "Honey Bee Democracy," "Following the Wild Bees," "Honey Bee Ecology," and "The Behavior and Social Life of Honey Bees."

“The Backyard Beekeeper provides a concise and lucid introduction to the art of keeping bee colonies. A thorough introduction of bee diseases and problems guides the new beekeeper through some difficult but common challenges.”—Lawrence John Connor, founding member of Wicwas Press LLC and author of many essential beekeeping guides

“The Backyard Beekeeper presents a modern look at traditional beekeeping. Numerous photos and diagrams supplement good, clearly written, beekeeping information. Particularly useful, the 25 Rules section provides current beekeeping fundamentals for successful beehive management. This is an excellent text for anyone interested in becoming a knowledgeable beekeeper.”—James E. Tew, PhD, beekeeping specialist, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Auburn University, and author of "The Beekeeper's Problem Solver" and "Wisdom for Beekeepers"

From the Publisher