Customer Reviews

Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The authors of this book clearly aren't novelists --- it's easy to doze off while reading it. But the information presented is stuff that for some unknown reason isn't covered in the general beekeeping texts. For example, this clearly explains why in-breeding bees can be very undesirable (or very desirable, depending on what you are trying to achieve). It explained to me for the first time, in an understandable way, the cause of "shot brood." I think this is an important book for people who want to go beyond simply having bees and want to understand what bees are all about. But it also contains a lot of practical information, such as detailed directions for constructing and use of robber screens for nuc boxes.

The beginning of the book that covers the logistics of getting ready to breed bees/rear queens is done fairly well. There is a lot of great information on what you'll need to do to get setup for the process. The section on genetics has a lot of less useful infomation and is poorly organized. I am not well versed in genetics, but I do have a strong background in Science (Math, Physics, and Chemistry) and one of my other hobbies besides beekeeping is cosmology. Most of the technical terms were not well defined and although the writter(s) of the genetics section of this book may be 100% correct and right on with there information, their ability to relate this information to the layperson (even one like me with an extensive background in science, just not genetics) was extremely poor.

If you are serious about bee breeding/queen rearing, you should probably have this book as an additional reference. As this is the first book I have read on the subject, I cannot recommend another book. I can recommend checking with your county extension offices and/or your state universities to see if they have more information on this subject or offer classes.

The University of Minnesota offers a class on Queen Rearing every summer. This year it will be over July 7-9, 2006. Here's the link: http://www.extension.umn.edu/honeybees/components/publiccourses.htm

I took this same class in July of 2004. It offered hands-on experience where everyone in the class got a chance to graft queens and learn the process of queen rearing. Lots of good class-room time and literature. If you have the option of doing something like this, I would strongly recommend it.

I'm biased--H.H.Laidlaw is my father, he is 91 years old and artificial insemination of honey bees has been his life work. This book has a great "look" on the page--many illustrations and photos. Interesting to "non-Bee-people" and really all about sex!

I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Page in 2002, and this book helped me to understand the fundamentals of queen rearing. Although I love technical books, when it comes to honey bees, I found it straight-forward and a worthwhile text. Although I didn't have to rear my own queens for my experiment, it helped to understand how bees are bred for traits and the process that is involved with breeding honey bees.

I WAS LOOKING FOR A TUTORIAL BOOK; THIS ONE IS NOT. I WAS DISAPPOINTED THAT IT WASN'T THE "HOW TO" BOOK I WAS LOOKING FOR.

i looked online for this book. your site had this book for sale. i ordered it and paid for it. you sent it to me. i received it through the mail system. now what do you want in this review? flowers with bells and whistles? when i was growing the good companies provided goods and service to the customer on a regular basis. now it seems that companies have to struggle hard to prove that they give exceptional service when it is what companies of yesteryear provided with each sale. you provided the product to me.
thank you.
R Roger Woolsey