Beginning Beekeeping: Everything You Need to Make Your Hive Thrive!

by Tanya Phillips

Overview

Learn everything you need to know to start your colony with this straightforward, highly visual guide for beginning beekeepers.
 
Featuring more than 120 color photos, Beginning Beekeeping will teach any beginner how to foster and maintain healthy, vibrant colonies. You’ll learn how to set up a colony and attract bees, how to incorporate best practices and techniques for keeping colonies strong, and how to troubleshoot and treat a broad range of common hive issues. Along the way, you’ll learn how to harvest your honey and keep your bees healthy and happy.
 
Included in Beginning Beekeeping:
 
·       Practical information on how a hive works, how and where to set up hives for maximum success, buying and installing bees, feeding bees, and more, with recommendations for both urban and rural settings
·       Effective treatment recommendations for dealing with common hive pests and diseases including mites, foulbrood, and colony collapse disorder (CCD), with recommendations for both conventional and organic treatments
·       Tips for dealing with common hive issues such as swarming, robbing, absconding, as well as guidance for managing aggressive hives and tips for keeping a queenright colony
·       Instructions for enjoying rich, bountiful honey harvests, and instructions for processing and storing the honey and wax from your hives, as well how to make products from your harvest
·       Seasonal guidance to ensure your hives return healthy and strong each and every year
 
If you’re new to beekeeping, Beginning Beekeeping is the perfect companion to get you started!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781465454539
Publisher:	DK
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	472,152
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Tanya Phillips, owner of Bee Friendly Austin, is a sideliner beekeeper in Central Texas managing up to 150 colonies. Utilizing her BA in Education, she teaches classes at her apiary in SW Austin and sells raw honey and hive products in several boutique shops in Austin and surrounding Hill Country locations.  Her interest in bees started out of simple curiosity and grew to sharing her passion, knowledge, and skills with others through education, community outreach, fundraising for research development, and generating increased public awareness for her beloved bees. Her husband Chuck shares that passion and together they founded a nonprofit that hosts an annual 'Tour de Hives' event to help fund bee research and education. Their apiary has been featured in several film documentaries, TV episodes, editorials, and websites discussing the importance of bees to the global food supply and she is frequently asked to speak as an expert in beekeeping on radio programs and at public events.  As the founder of the Travis County Beekeepers Association she served as board President from 2013-2016 and is a graduate of the first Master-Level Beekeeping Course with the University of Montana. Future plans include travel into third world countries to teach beekeeping skills to the local residents and to continue in her quest to help save the world, one bee at a time!

Table of Contents

1 All About Honeybees 9

Why We Need Honeybees 10

Common Species of Honeybees 12

The Honeybee Hive 14

Stages of Honeybee Development 16

The Queen 18

The Drone 20

The Worker 22

How the Hive Works 24

How Bees Communicate 26

What Bees Eat 28

2 Getting Started 31

The Evolution of Beekeeping 32

The Pioneers of Beekeeping 34

Why Become a Beekeeper? 36

Urban Beekeeping 38

Rural Beekeeping 40

Beekeeping on a Budget 42

The Beekeeper's Toolshed 44

The Beekeeper's Closet 46

The Langstroth Hive 48

Langstroth Foundations and Frames 50

The Top-Bar Hive 52

Other Hive Types 54

Creating a Well-Planned Apiary 56

Creating a Garden for Your Bees 58

Attracting Swarms to Your Hives 60

Catching Swarms 62

Buying and Installing Bees 64

Installing a Queen 70

3 Maintaining Your Hives 73

Anatomy of a Healthy Hive 74

Handling Bees Safely 76

Inspecting Your Hives 78

Maintaining a Queenright Colony 82

Replacing the Queen (Requeening) 84

Swarm Causes and Controls 86

Controlling Overcrowding 88

Storing and Using Drawn Comb 90

Recordkeeping 92

Hive Inspections 94

Hive Box Maintenance 98

Top-Bar Hive Considerations 100

4 The Harvest 105

Products of the Hive 106

Setting Up Your Honey Extraction Space 108

How to Remove Bees from a Super 110

Extracting and Filtering Honey 112

Bottling and Labeling Honey 114

Honey Extraction in a Top-Bar Hive 116

Harvesting Wax 118

Building a Solar Wax Melter 120

Harvesting and Storing Pollen 122

Uses for Honey 124

Uses for Wax 126

5 Pests and Hive Treatments 129

Common Threats to Bees 130

Minimizing the Risks for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) 132

Bee Mites: Diseases and Treatments 134

Brood Diseases and Treatments 136

Viruses 137

Significant Threats to Your Bees 138

Small Hive Beetles 140

Other Pests 142

Approaches to Pest Management 144

Using Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Techniques 146

6 Troubleshooting 149

Managing Queen Issues 150

Preventing Dead Bees 152

Laying Workers and Drone-Laying Queens 154

Managing a Tiny Colony 156

Preventing Robbing 158

Preventing Absconding 160

Moving and Transporting Hives 162

Handling Aggressive Hives 164

7 Seasonal Beekeeping 167

Beekeeping in Spring 168

Beekeeping in Summer 170

Beekeeping in Autumn 172

Beekeeping in Winter 174

Dealing with Flooding 178

Feeding Your Bees 180

Resources and Suppliers 184

Organizations and Magazines 185

Index 186