Beginners: Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping

[Solomon Parker]

I recently purchased "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping." It was written by our own Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer.

This has to be the best beginners beekeeping book I have ever read. If not for its interesting and thorough exploration of the basics of beekeeping, then for its being the only beginners beekeeping book that I have ever seen that advocates treatment free beekeeping.

The book showed up yesterday. It can be purchased from Amazon.com for a very reasonable price especially used. I spent a good portion of the evening leafing through it and reading many sections in it.

It's a very good book, and the only book at this point that I will be recommending to new beekeepers. I just wish somebody wrote a book called "The Inquisitive Person's Guide to..."

[Beeman410]

I have a few books and to be honest "Beekeeping for Dummies" is the one i liked best.
Its great for beginners and a good quick reference for everyone else.
My $0.02

[sevenmmm]

I am on my third book and have another 3 on the shelf waiting their turn. I will buy that book and place it on top on your recommendation.

Am wondering if anyone has noticed the super high prices being fetched for the older honeybee books offered on ebay throughout the winter?

[Cris]

I have a few books and to be honest "Beekeeping for Dummies" is the one i liked best.
Its great for beginners and a good quick reference for everyone else.
My $0.02

My favorite too, and it's an entertaining read t'boot!

[Omie]

I like both Beekeeping for Dummies AND Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping!
Both are good books. The Idiot's one is better for those interested in treatment-free methods, but both give lots of great beginner info about bees.

[sqkcrk]

It was written by our own Dean Stiglitz ...

Aka deknow, right?

[BeeCurious]

Yes...

[Bamabww]

I have the Beekeeping for Dummies and have found it very helpful. I think I'll order the Complete Idiot's Guide as well. Had a friend from this site recommend just yesterday.

[Michael Bush]

I've always found the dilemma with writing for a beginner is trying not to inundate them with information while not oversimplifying something to the point that it isn't true. I never could figure out how to do it. But Dean and Ramona have done a remarkable job of it.

[Merlinspop]

I bought the D book a few months ago, and frankly I couldn't finish it. I'm not planning to be a diehard treatment free keeper, but in my life, I have always viewed healthy living and good diet as a preferred to constantly seeking medical or chemical solutions to life's problems. So when every section of the D book started with, "it's X season; now is the time to apply Y to treat for Z just in case" I was kind of put off.

Now that I've read the Idiots book, which I found very refreshing and informative, maybe I can revisit Dummies and and get a more rounded perspective between the two.

[deknow]

Thank you everyone for the kind words about our book.

When we were first offered the contract to write the book, we were a bit dubious. Penguin had decided that they wanted a beekeeping book for their "complete idiot's guide" series, and they wanted to do it as part of an informal group of "homesteading" books (making cheese, goats, etc)....and there had been a decision already made that they wanted it from the "natural" perspective....they knew nothing about beekeeping, but could see that this is where the trend was heading.

We had talked among ourselves about writing a book, but had done nothing to make it happen (never sent out a manuscript or treatment, never contacted a publisher or agent). I know several published authors, and finding an agent and publisher was the hard part for them....not so for us.

We simply got a cold call from an agent offering us the contract (pending us writing an outline and a sample chapter) based solely upon her finding our website, and seeing the program descriptions that Ramona had written for the first NETFBC.

There was one point when we were sending emails back and forth that I thought we were going to lose the contract....they had asked if we would talk about common treatments, and we replied that we would, but would not hold back as to why we think they should not be used. The reply (surprisingly) was, "That is exactly what we want."

We had very tight deadlines, and because it is part of the CIG series, an established format that we had to follow (this worked out great for us, as it gave us a template upon which to superimpose what we wanted to write).

Neither or us had ever written anything even close to book-length, and our academic backgrounds (undergraduate degrees) are in music (me) and studio art (Ramona).

There are a number of very good beginning beekeeping books that teach the standard "recipe" for beekeeping, and we told the publisher that we didn't see the point in writing another. Our goal was to write a book, geared towards the new beekeeper, that came at all of this from the perspective of the bees (first and foremost), and leads the way towards developing one's own management practice based upon what the bees need, what they are doing, and what the beekeeper can expect.

I don't think our book is "perfect" by any means...but I do think we accomplished our goals for the most part. I cringe at the idea of a new beekeeper starting out with a book (any book, including ours) in one hand, and a new package of bees in the other....hands on experience is so important....yet, we know that many people do start out this way.

In any case, the book seems to be selling well, and we get fan mail (which is really fun), all the while, we are discussing among ourselves how to make it better for the next edition, and looking at a number of new projects.

deknow

[eastwood423]

I have purchased almost 10 beekeeping books and four DVDs. Of them all, The complete Idiot's Guide is the best by far. I'm starting it for the second time in just two weeks.

[Gordo]

Dean and Laurie host an excellent conference in Mass, every summer. This is the third year and we've just registered again. The website is here: http://beeuntoothers.com

[MDS]

Bought it and read it about three months ago. Worth the money. Easy to read and a good foundation for learning.