Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees: Honey Production, Pollination, Bee Health (Storey's Guide to Raising) [Paperback]

Richard E. Bonney (Author), Malcolm T. Sanford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2010 | Series: Storey's Guide to Raising

Everyone is buzzing about bees! Urban beekeeping is on the rise as swarms of people do their part to help nurture local food systems, make gardens more productive, connect with nature, and rescue honey bee populations from colony collapse disorder. Honey bee hives now grace the White House Lawn, the roof of Chicago City Hall, the National Arboretum, and the top of the Fairmont Hotel. Even Hagen-Daazs has gotten into the act with its well-funded campaign, Help the Honey Bees.

Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, the newest addition to the best-selling series, will be the single resource sought by beekeepers in all settings. Malcolm T. Sanford presents a thorough overview of these industrious and critically important insects. With this book as their guide, beekeepers will understand how to plan a hive, acquire bees, install a colony, keep bees healthy, maintain a healthy hive, understand and prevent new diseases, and harvest honey crops.

The book also provides an overview of the honey bee nest and colony life, insights into honey bee anatomy and behavior, an exploration of apiary equipment and tools, season-by-season beekeeper responsibilities, instructions for harvesting honey, and detailed, up-to-date information about diseases and other potential risks to bees.

This comprehensive reference will appeal to both the experienced beekeeper who seeks help with specific issues and the novice eager to get started.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A detailed description of a bee’s life, the importance of hive location, the illustrated anatomy of a beehive, colony management, crop harvest, diseases and pests of honeybees, plus basic tips for beginners make for engrossing reading throughout Sanford and Bonney’s thorough guide. Whether beginners or longtime enthusiasts, readers will learn plenty of useful information from the section-by-section, step-by-step approach to this increasingly popular endeavor. The authors also offer an engaging section on the origin and history of beekeeping, complete with bee family tree and honeybee evolution. Along the way, readers will find reasonable warnings and possible solutions to the less-desirable components of beekeeping, ranging from heat to the unnerving section on multiple bee stings requiring renal dialysis, but the joy of hive management predominates. Line illustrations throughout and a glossary, resources, index, and pollination contract add to this in-depth overview. --Whitney Scott

About the Author

A beekeeper for over 13 years, author Richard E. Bonney owns Charlemont Apiaries in Charlemont, Massachusetts. He has authored two books, Hive Management and Beekeeping. Richard is a beekeeping teacher at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He was named the Massachusetts Extension Specialist-Apiculture in 1991 and writes regularly about beekeeping.

Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford is the Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida.  He has been published extensively in the apiculture press including the journals Bee Culture and American Bee Journal.  He has been the newsletter author for over twenty years at Ohio State University and the University of Florida, writing on beekeeping management.  He is the Coordinator of the Apis Information Resource Center and author of The Apis Newsletter.  He has been a beekeeping management consultant in Egypt, Italy, France, Chile, Ecuador, Iraq, and Mexico.  He lives in Florida.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; First Edition edition (September 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603425500
• ISBN-13: 978-1603425506
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #396,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford is Professor Emeritus, retired Cooperative Extension Specialist in Apiculture, University of Florida. He is the author of the Apis Newsletter, the longest-running monthly organ of its kind, still being published at http://apis.shorturl.com

Educated at the University of Georgia in the art and science of keeping honey bees, Dr. Sanford worked first at The Ohio State University, later ending his career after 20 years at the University of Florida. During his career, he published numerous articles for The Speedy Bee, Bee Culture and American Bee Journal, including summaries of the majority of the annual conventions of the American Beekeeping Federation, as well as resumés of World Apicultural Congress meetings held in Acapulco, Mexico (1981); Budapest, Hungary (1983), and Rio de Janeiro (1989), Canada (1999), South Africa (2001), Australia (2007), and France (2009). Many of these can be found at the Apis Information Resource Center at http://squidoo.com/apis, as well as series on genetically modified organisms, Brazilian apiculture, events relating to honey bees at the International Union of Social Insects (Russia), and Africanized honey bees in the Americas for the American Bee Journal.

Dr. Sanford has been frequently invited to international conferences, including the Caribbean (1992), Mexico (1993, 1998, 2004, 2005), Uruguay (1996), Brazil (1996, 2000, 2004 ) and France (1997). He also organized and hosted the international symposium on beekeeping extension and regulation for the 1999 Apimondia meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada and was a beekeeping consultant in Paraguay (1980), Ecuador (1980, 2000), Antigua (1986), Egypt (1992), Chile (2002), Iraq-Kurdistan (2004).

A former Peace Corps Volunteer (Ecuador; 1964-66), who speaks Spanish fluently, Dr. Sanford has training in Italian 1989 (six-month sabbatical in Bologna, Italy) and French 1997 (six-month sabbatical in Aix-en-Provence, France).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A dull and lacking narrative February 9, 2011

By Steven CL

Format:Paperback

This was a very poor representation of what beekeeping is actually like and in many cases he gives the worst possible solutions on how to fix common problems in the hives. An example of how useless this book is, is the question "how much honey should i leave on a hive during winter?" the author's response was "what do you think they need?" Many other problems are approached by either reasking the question or are just a new question in and of themselves. I would not even recommend this book to a novice as even simple tasks are not fully explained. Also the random quotes and filler are not only distracting but boring and uninformative. This book needs some serious revision or to be pulled off the shelves.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A straightforward introduction to the craft and art of keeping and managing beehives for honey October 14, 2010

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Paperback

University of Florida Extension Beekeeping Specialist Malcolm T. Sanford has combined his expertise with the late Richard E. Bonney's foundational "Beekeeping and Hive Management" instructional to create Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, a straightforward introduction to the craft and art of keeping and managing beehives for honey. Although intended especially to help neophytes get up to speed, Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees is solid and thorough enough to offer plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques that long-time veterans will appreciate. Chapters address the necessary preparatory steps (from researching local community laws about bees to acquiring and learning how to use protective equipment to keeping emergency remedies for bee stings on hand and more), how to install a colony (two colonies are recommended for beginners, in case one colony suffers disaster), prevent diseases, harvest honey crops, and much more. "In rural areas, ensure that livestock are not located nearby (some tend to use beehives as scratching posts). Horses are a particular problem. Their odor seems to offend bees, and when stinging starts, horses often react violently and can injure themselves."

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Weakest in the Storey's Guide series February 9, 2011

By Randall Sceraga

Format:Hardcover

I've been considering setting up some hives, mainly for pollination of my orchards but also for some home-made honey. I was looking forward to this book since I've read most of the other Storey's guides (chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, etc) and expected this one to give a good overview of the hobby backed up with lots of details. I was disappointed. This book had a lot of useless filler including boxed anecdotes that didn't convey useful information ("Nothing tastes as good as fresh honey draining from the slinger", other rambling ones take up a whole page) and repetition within the text itself. A lot of the advice in the the text itself was wishy washy where the other books in the series were more prescriptive.