Building Beehives For Dummies is the follow-up book to the bestselling Beekeeping For Dummies. It provides everything you need to learn how to build some of the world’s most popular hives and beekeeping accessories. For each design the book includes a detailed materials list (what lumber, hardware and fasteners you’ll need), step-by-step building instructions, and illustrative drawings that show how the components all fit together. There are over a dozen plans in all, including the traditional Langstroth hive, the eight frame garden hive, designs for elevated hive stands, the Warre hive, screened bottom board, the Kenya top-bar hive, four-frame observation hive, hive top feeders, and more. The book contains introductory chapters that teach you the basic carpentry skills necessary to build any of the plans in the book.

Fully revised and in full color, this very comprehensive Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping is a must have for teachers and beekeepers both. With updated material covering over a decade of changes in the world of apiculture and hundreds of full color photos and diagrams, this book offers insights into bee behavior, current management techniques, and updated threat analysis, all in context that will elucidate and educate.

Honey-Maker takes us into the beehive for a look through the lens of a bee-loving biologist. Beginning with an overview of the colony, which includes the queen, workers, and drones, the book then divides into sections that reflect the design of an insect: Head, Thorax, and Abdomen. We learn how the worker, the familiar bee we find on our lawns and in our gardens, makes wax and constructs honeycomb, tends the queen, raises all of the colony’s young, forages for and collects nectar and pollen, makes honey and bee bread, dances, grooms, swarms, and stings.

We also see the capacity of the honey bee worker to cooperate with other members of her colony and to alter her activities and physiology to meet the colony’s ever-changing needs. Honey-Maker further speaks to our age-old relationship with the honey bee and suggests ways in which we all might contribute to a more habitable landscape.

“An engaging collection of observations about honeybees and their activities.” Publishers Weekly

William Longgood has taken the logical parts of beekeeping and exposed its emotional side. He has dissected every aspect of the hobby/business and his heart is open in every word he uses to describe these beautiful insects. As an emotional beekeeper, it is nice to see someone put into words what is so hard to convey to those who don’t keep bees or those who don’t care if they live or die. Plus the fact that you walk away from this book with the sense that humans could learn a thing or two from bees in how we function as a society.

Swarming is a powerful instinct, one that most successful beekeepers have encountered by their second year. Swarm Essentials outlines the ramifications of swarming behavior (highlighting the often overlooked benefits), proven management techniques, and how to recover and even prosper from a successful swarm attempt. Author Stephen J. Repasky’s inaugural publication marks the latest addition to the Essentials series and is an excellent read for any beekeeper who hopes to make it past their first year.