A Practical Manual of Beekeeping
Subtitle: How to keep bees and develop your full potential as an apiarist
Publisher: How To Books by Deer Park Productions,
Published: 2008
Place of publication: United Kingdom.
Description: A fascinating hobby; a remunerative business; or a globetrotting career? Which type of beekeeper do you want to be? It is entirely up to you: beekeeping can provide it all.Beekeeping can provide anyone with an interesting and useful hobby or a lucrative and rewarding business. It is recognised as a vital agricultural industry and can therefore also offer you a globe trotting career. The whole subject is, however, often shrouded in mystery and loaded with jargon, leaving many people unaware of its true potential or how to start. This book strips away all the mystery and explains step by step how - from day one - you can start beekeeping as a hobby; how you can progress to running a beekeeping business; or how you can start a career as a beekeeper which can quite easily take you all over the world. No other guide explains in such detail the true potential and accessibility of beekeeping or of being a beekeeper.
Table of contents: title: List of photographs    xi; title: Introduction    xiii; title: Acknowledgements    xv; title: 1 Honey-bees and human beings   1; title: Understanding the relationship between bees and pollination   1; title: Profiting from a gold mine   2; title: Coping with bee stings   4; title: Making a hobby of beekeeping   4; title: Bees and learning   5; title: Master chemists 5; title: Researching honey-bees 6; title: Becoming a beekeeper 6; title: The world is your oyster 8; title: 2 Understanding the honey-bee colony 9; title: Considering the colony as a single organism 9; title: Bee development 10; title: Queen bees 12; title: Worker bees 15; title: Drone bees 21; title: The politics of the hive, or ‘who tells whom what to do?’ 23; title: The birth of a queen 25; title: Colony nest requirements 27; title: The beekeeper’s role 28; title: Summary 29; title: A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF BEEKEEPING
label: vi; title: 3 Using the products of the hive and bees 31; title: Producing honey 31; title: Collecting pollen 35; title: Harvesting royal jelly 36; title: Producing beeswax 38; title: Collecting propolis 40; title: Producing venom 42; title: Harvesting silk 43; title: Summary 44; title: 4 Obtaining equipment and bees 45; title: Acquiring beehives 45; title: Choosing the type of beehive 57; title: Buying second-hand hives 59; title: Obtaining new hives or making your own 60; title: Acquiring other beekeeping equipment 60; title: Clothing 63; title: Obtaining bees 65; title: Acquiring gentle bees 66; title: Starting beekeeping: a summary 67; title: Acquiring the equipment 69; title: When to obtain your bees 69; title: What next? 70; title: 5 Starting with bees 71; title: Positioning your hives 71; title: Arranging insurance in rural and urban areas 77; title: Your bees arrive 77; title: Summary 81; title: 6 The active season: spring 82; title: Starting in the springtime 82; title: Swarming 91; title: Supersedure 109; title: Building up the colony 110; title: Summary 113; title: vii
label: CONTENTS; title: 7 The active season: summer and autumn 115; title: Taking your bees to harvest 115; title: Supering up 116; title: Harvesting honey 118; title: Extracting the honey 126; title: Analysing your extracted honey 127; title: Dealing with the aftermath 131; title: Producing comb honey 132; title: Granulated and creamed honey 135; title: Inspecting the hive post-harvest 135; title: Marketing honey 136; title: The year so far: a summary 136; title: 8 Dealing with problems 138; title: Laying workers 138; title: Coping with aggressive colonies 141; title: Dealing with robber bees 144; title: Uniting colonies 146; title: Preventing spray damage 148; title: Moving hives 150; title: Dealing with queen problems 152; title: Introducing a new queen: a summary 160; title: 9 Overwintering your bees: autumn to spring 162; title: Preparing for winter 162; title: Making feed mixes 167; title: Storing sugar syrup 170; title: The spring start 171; title: The beekeeping year: a summary 175; title: 10 Controlling diseases and pests 178; title: Managing diseases and pests 178; title: Wax moth 179; title: Brood diseases 182; title: Other brood problems 190; title: Adult bee diseases 192; title: Other pests and disorders 208; title: Yet other pests 212; title: Summary 214; title: A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF BEEKEEPING
label: viii; title: 11 Rearing queens and breeding bees 216; title: Why rear your own queens? 216; title: Choosing the time of year to re-queen 217; title: Queen rearing: an outline 218; title: Preparing the larvae 218; title: Moving the larvae 221; title: Rearing queens: methods 222; title: Inducing supersedure 232; title: Marking your queens 232; title: Troubleshooting queen cells 235; title: Assessing queen cells 236; title: Assessing queens 237; title: Keeping records 237; title: Breeding queens 237; title: Practical bee breeding 242; title: A bee breeding system: an example 246; title: Bee breeding: a summary 247; title: 12 Exploring products and career possibilities 248; title: Pollination 248; title: Harvesting other products of the hive 252; title: Going organic 264; title: Making a career in beekeeping 266; title: Beekeeping around the world 272; title: Finale 273; title: Weights and measures ready-reckoner 275; title: Further reading 279; title: International beekeeping organizations 283; title: Beekeeping charities 285; title: Beekeeping journals 287; title: Beekeeping supply companies 289; title: Index 293