Best books

[hmeadq]

What, in everyones opinion, are the BEST books or the couldn't live without books.

Which are better for a new-bee (like me) and which have more advanced knowledge...

[Lew Best]

For beginners I don't think you can beat Walter T. Kelley's "How to Keep Bees & Sell Honey." Available from Walter T. Kelley Co. (bee supply company).

Lew

[Sundance]

Hive and the Honeybee - My top pick
ABC XYZ of Bee Culture

I have Beekeeping for Dummies and was not impressed at all. (gonna put it on ebay). Too rudimentary and the info on this board is much better.

[Scott Griffith]

I'm a beginner too, but here is a few books I really like:

ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture (A I Root/ Morse)
The New Complete Guide to Beekeeping (Morse)
First Lessons in Beekeeping (Dadant)
The How-to-do-it book of Beekeeping (Taylor)

[Michael Bush]

I read these from cover to cover many times when I started out:

First Lessons in Beekeeping (Dadant)
ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture (A I Root)
The Hive and the Honeybee (Dadant)

Of course mine are from the middle 1970's to the early 1980's. smile.gif

And I really enjoyed this one:

Hive and the Honeybee (L.L. Langstroth)

You can still get it one from Amazon.

And then there are all the really old ones:

http://bees.library.cornell.edu/b/bees/browse.html

[Bob Harrison]

I might suggest a little known book available from Dr. Larry Conner (Wicwas press).

"Apiculture for the 21st. Century"
by Roger Hoopingarrner & Larry Conner.

The book is a collection of information both felt would be helpful to surviving beekeeping in the 21st. century. The book was released in 1999.

Larry gave me a signed copy when we were both speakers at the Kansas Honey Producers meeting. I had never seen the book before or knew the book existed. I could not put the book down and had the book read before we got back home.

15 chapters by the big guns of beekeeping research. Like Dr. Harbo and Robert Page.

A little advanced for new beekeepers but excellent reading for advanced beekeepers.

[kenpkr]

I would recommend The Beekeeper's Handbook by Sammatro. Find all of these listed on Amazon look 'em over before you buy. Often you can find these used on sites like Amazon and Half.com and save a bunch of money.
For pure pleasure reading, The Queen Must Die and A Book of Bees can't be beat!

[Robert Hawkins]

Mike forgot to mention that on the really old books

http://bees.library.cornell.edu/b/bees/browse.html

You can read them on line. Doesn't cost a nickel. Well, connect time if you pay for it.

Hawk

[Dan Williamson]

I like some of the books by Richard Taylor.

Joys of Beekeeping was a great read.

He has a comb honey book I really liked I just can't remember the exact title of it.

Dan

[BubbaBob]

The Hive and the Honeybee and The Beekeeper's Handbook.

The only reason I don't include ABC's and XYZ's is if you already have Hive and the Honeybee it would be redundant and wasteful of money.

BubbaBob

[Barry Digman]

"_____________" by Michael Bush.

[Jim Fischer]

Don't forget "The Wisdom of The Hive"
by Tom Seeley. It has not a word about
how to sling around boxes or smoke the
bees before you open the lid, but it
does explain WHY the bees do what they
do, and gets you much more in tune with
my view of bees as "God's wind-up toys".

Bees are very predictable little bugs.
Much moreso than most people think.

Gould and Gould's "The Honeybee" is another
good book, covering the basic hardware/software
package that comes with your standard-issue
bee. They take a "shop manual" approach,
where each functional subsystem is discussed,
and don't get inside the bees' heads as much
as Tom does, but they do discuss much
"behavior", at least to the level of laying
out the consensus at the time the book was
written. Too bad it never got updated.

[Dick Allen]

'Bees and Beekeeping--Science, Practice and World Resources' by Eva Crane is the best I've seen. IMO, it surpasses even THATHB. It's out of print, but available used and does cost some money. The book, of course, can be had on an interlibrary loan for inspection to see if it's something you'd want to spend your hard earned $$$ on. Another great book to have is 'Form and Function in the Honey Bee' by Lesley Goodman. It's not an actual beekeeping book but goes more deeply into bee biology than most general beekeeping books do. Mark Winston's 'The Biology of the Honey Bee' is another great, very readable, bee biology book.

[Michael Bush]

>Mike forgot to mention that on the really old books

Actually I didn't forget, I posted it just above your's. But it's worth posting again. smile.gif

http://bees.library.cornell.edu/b/bees/browse.html

[Matt K]

I am a new guy so I do not know about the best book but I was at the library yesterday getting ready for a trip and found a new book you all might like to look into
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+2004026887&CNT=10+records+per+page
I just started it but I would guess if you like your bees you will like this book or at least part of it.
I also got bees and beekeeping by Roger Morse it seems like it is a good well rounded beekeeping book.
Have a great weekend!
Matt

[Jim Fischer]

> Form and Function in the Honey Bee' by Lesley Goodman

I paid serious bucks to get a copy of that book
shipped from the UK when it was finally published,
only to find out that Kim Flottum had ordered a
case at about the same time. If you want one,
buy it from AI Root, and save on shipping.

Its big, its beautiful, the microphotgraphs
are incredible, but aside from verifying that
BEES GOT HAIRY EYEBALLS!!!! yet again, it
was a very expensive coffee table book, not
really of much practical use.

On the other hand, the standard naval
aviator's excuse applies here as applied
to my relationship with bees -

I don't build 'em,
I don't fix 'em,
I just fly 'em.

[stinger]

i THINK BEEKEEPING FOR DUMMIES IS A GOOD BOOK BY HOWLAND BLACKISTON. ALTHOUGH I DON'T PARTICULARLY LIKE THE TITLE. (DUHHHH)
i'M READING BAD BEEKEEPING FROM RON MIKSHA RIGHT NOW. IT'S OK SO FAR -I'M IN THE FOURTH CHAPTER....

[Sourwood]

It's not a book, but I like reading George Imiries' pink pages on the brushy mountain bee farm web site. Sadly he quit posting new ones though.

[Dick Allen]

>"Its big, its beautiful, the microphotgraphs are incredible"....etc., etc. etc.

Maybe you should actually try reading it sometime. There is much more to the book than pictures. It also has text. :rolleyes:

Dr. Fischer (uhh, Jim) is right about ordering it from Root and not overseas however. It's available for checkout on any interlibrary system. Generally, before I buy any book, I get it from the library first.

Here's a good book for free right off the internet. 'Value Added Products From Beekeeping'

http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e00.htm

[Jim Fischer]

> Maybe you should actually try reading it sometime.

Naw, I'm waiting for the movie to come out. ;)

[BeeBear]

Richard Taylor's comb honey book mentioned above is entitled "Comb Honey Book" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0960328858/qid=1120221629/

On a somewhat different note, a couple of fiction books that have bees as a component:

The secret life of bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. I didn't like it myself but I've seen several enthusiastic reviews by other folks.

The beekeeper's apprentice, by Lauri King. The beekeeper is Sherlock Holmes after retirement, and the apprentice is a 15-year-old girl.