The Practical Beekeeper: Beekeeping Naturally

by Michael Bush

Overview

This book is about how to keep bees in a natural and practical system where they do not require treatments for pests and diseases and only minimal interventions. It is also about simple practical beekeeping. It is about reducing your work. It is not a main-stream beekeeping book. Many of the concepts are contrary to "conventional" beekeeping. The techniques presented here are streamlined through decades of experimentation, adjustments and simplification. The content was written and then refined from responding to questions on bee forums over the years so it is tailored to the questions that beekeepers, new and experienced, have. It is divided into three volumes and this edition contains all three: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614760641
Publisher:	X-STAR PUBLISHING COMPANY
Publication date:	07/15/2011
Pages:	670
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.00(d)
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Michael Bush has had an eclectic set of careers from printing and graphic arts, to construction to computer programming and a few more in between. Currently he is working in computers. He has been keeping bees since the mid 70's, usually from two to seven hives up until the year 2000. Varroa forced more experimentation which required more hives and the number has grown steadily over the years from then. By 2008 it was about 200 hives. He is active on many of the Beekeeping forums with last count at over 50,000 posts between all of them.

"His writing is like his talks, with more content, detail, and depth than one would think possible with such few words...his website and PowerPoint presentations are the gold standard for diverse and common sense beekeeping practices."--Dean Stiglitz

Table of Contents

Volume I Beginning 1
BLUF 3
Why this book? 6
Learning 12
Bee Basics 16
Four Simple Steps to Healthy Bees 29
Choices 45
Getting Started 59
Foundation and Frames 68
Locating hives? 72
Installing Packages 76
Enemies of the Bees 87
Queen Spotting 119
Fallacies 125
Realistic Expectations 138
Harvest 143
Frequently Asked Questions 154
Appendix to Volume I: Glossary 182
Appendix to Volume I: Acronyms 253
Volume II Intermediate 259
A System of Beekeeping 261
Decisions, Decisions... 265
Locality 269
Lazy Beekeeping 271
Feeding Bees 298
Top Entrances 329
Swarm Control 341
Splits 348
Natural Cell Size 356
Rationalizations on Small Cell Success 380
Foundationless 385
Narrow Frames 400
Yearly Cycles 410
Wintering Bees 414
Spring Management 425
Laying Workers 429
More than Bees 434
Bee Math 437
Races of Bees 438
Moving Bees 442
Treatments for Varroa not working 450
A Few Good Queens 452
Volume III Advanced 459
Genetics 461
Feral Bees 464
Nucs 504
Lighter Equipment 515
Wax Dipping Equipment 525
Colony Decisions 528
Two Queen Hives 530
Top Bar Hives 532
Horizontal Hives 551
Observation Hives 554
Box Jig 568
Miscellaneous Equipment 573
Things I did not invent 580
Beekeeping Math 591
Unnatural Things in Beekeeping 593
Scientific Studies 596
Requeening a Hot Hive 625
CCD 628
About the Author 630
Index 633