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• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• About This Book
• How This Book Is Organised
• Part I: Getting Hooked on Honey Bees
• Part II: Starting Your Adventure
• Part III: Looking Inside Your Hive
• Part IV: Common Problems and Simple Solutions
• Part V: Sweet Rewards
• Part VI: The Part of Tens
• Icons Used in This Book
• Where to Go from Here
• Part I: Getting Hooked on Honey Bees
• Chapter 1: To Bee or Not to Bee?
• Discovering the Benefits of Beekeeping
• Harvesting liquid gold: Honey
• Bees as pollinators: Their vital role in ensuring our food supply
• Helping the bees; helping the environment
• Passing on your knowledge
• Good for your wellbeing; good for your health
• Determining Your Beekeeping Potential
• Environmental considerations
• Being responsible and considering others
• Costs and equipment
• Time and commitment
• Beekeeper personality traits
• Overcoming Fear of Stings
• Knowing what to do if you’re stung
• Building up a tolerance
• Watching for allergic reactions
• Chapter 2: Life Inside the Honey Bee Hive
• Basic Body Parts
• Skeleton
• Head
• Thorax
• Abdomen
• The Amazing Language of Bees
• Pheromones
• Shall we dance?
• Dividing Honey Bees into Three Castes
• Her majesty, the queen
• The industrious little worker bee
• The woeful drone
• The Honey Bee Life-Cycle
• Egg
• Larva
• Pupa
• Part II: Starting Your Adventure
• Chapter 3: Locating Your Hive
• Getting Over ‘Buzz Off!’: Consulting Family and Neighbours
• Location, Location, Location: Where to Keep Your Hives
• Providing for your thirsty bees
• Understanding why your honey varies in colour and flavour
• Knowing When to Start Your Adventure
• Chapter 4: Stocking Up on Basic Beekeeping Equipment
• Finding Out about the Modified National Hive
• Knowing the Basic Parts of the Hive
• Hive stand
• Floor
• Entrance block
• Brood chamber
• Queen excluder
• Super
• Frames
• Foundation
• Crown board
• Roof
• Ordering Hive Parts
• Preparing for assembly
• Adding on Feeders
• Miller and Ashforth rapid feeders
• Bucket feeder
• Frame feeder
• Stocking Up on Your Personal Beekeeping Equipment
• Smoker
• Hive tool
• Covering Up with Bee-Proof Clothing
• Veils
• Gloves
• Really Helpful Accessories
• Elevated hive stand
• Frame rest
• Bee brush
• Other necessities
• Chapter 5: Obtaining and Hiving Your Bees
• Determining the Kind of Bee You Want
• Deciding How to Obtain Your Initial Bee Colony
• Picking a reputable bee supplier
• Deciding when to place your order
• Buying a nucleus colony
• Transferring your nucleus to a hive
• Purchasing an established colony
• Capturing a wild swarm of bees
• Ordering package bees
• Meeting and Greeting: The Day Your Bees Arrive
• Bringing home your bees
• Feeding your bees
• Buzzing with Excitement: Putting Your Bees into the Hive
• Part III: Looking Inside Your Hive
• Chapter 6: Opening Your Hive
• Setting an Inspection Schedule
• Preparing to Visit Your Hive
• Making ‘non-scents’ a part of personal hygiene
• Getting dressed up and ready to go
• Lighting your smoker
• Opening the Hive
• Removing the crown board
• The Hive’s Open! Now What?
• Chapter 7: What to Look for when You’re Inspecting
• Exploring Basic Inspection Techniques: Examining a Full Colony
• Removing the first frame
• Working your way through the hive
• Holding up frames for inspection
• Understanding what to look for every time
• Replacing frames
• Closing the hive
• Establishing a Colony from a Nucleus
• Managing your nucleus
• Starting your Colony with a Package of Bees
• Checking in: A week after hiving your bees
• The second and third weeks
• Weeks four to eight
• Chapter 8: Your Work throughout the Seasons
• Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer
• Your summer to-do list
• Your summer time commitment
• Falling Leaves Point to Autumn Tasks
• Your autumn to-do list
• Making one hive from two
• Your autumn time commitment
• Clustering in a Winter Wonderland
• Your winter to-do list
• Your winter time commitment
• Spring Is in the Air: Starting Your Second Season
• Your spring to-do list
• Making two hives from one
• Your spring time commitment
• Administering spring medication
• Reversing hive bodies
• Part IV: Common Problems and Simple Solutions
• Chapter 9: Heading Off Potential Problems
• Avoiding Absconding
• Swarming
• Absconding
• Where Did the Queen Go?
• Letting nature take its course
• Ordering a replacement queen
• Introducing a new queen to the hive
• Avoiding Chilled Brood
• Dealing with the Dreaded Robbing Frenzies
• Knowing the difference between normal and abnormal (robbing) behaviour
• Putting a stop to a robbing attack
• Preventing robbing in the first place
• Ridding Your Hive of the Laying Worker Phenomenon
• How to know if you have laying workers
• Getting rid of laying workers
• Preventing Pesticide Poisoning
• Chapter 10: Treating Diseases and Considering Colony Collapse Disorder
• Medicating when Necessary
• Knowing the Big Six Bee Diseases
• American foulbrood (AFB)
• European foulbrood (EFB)
• Nosema
• Chalkbrood
• Sacbrood
• Stonebrood
• A handy chart
• Shedding Some Light on Colony Collapse Disorder and Vanishing Hives
• Unlocking the mystery of the Mary Celeste hives
• Discovering more about CCD
• Exploring Potential Causes of CCD
• The mobile phone theory
• Pollinating insect research
• A Final Word
• Chapter 11: Buzz Off! Dealing with Honey Bee Pests
• Preventing Parasitic Mites
• Varroa mites
• Controlling Varroa the natural way
• Acarine (Tracheal mites)
• Wax Moths
• Ants, Ants and More Ants
• Keeping Out Mice
• Dealing with Birds that Have a Taste for Bees
• Pest Control in a Nutshell
• Chapter 12: Raising Your Own Queens
• Why Raising Queens Makes You Proud
• Accentuating the Positive: Choosing Good Traits
• What Makes a Queen a Queen
• Buzzing with love: Queen mating
• Creating Demand: Making a Queenless Nuc
• Queen Rearing: The Miller Method
• Using an Artificial Swarm to Raise Queens
• The Doolittle Method: Grafting
• Tools and equipment
• How it’s done
• Trying Out the Jenter System
• How it’s done
• Providing nuptial housing
• Finding a Home for Your Queens
• Part V: Sweet Rewards
• Chapter 13: Getting Ready for the Golden Harvest
• Choosing Extracted, Comb, Chunk or Soft-Set Honey
• Using the Right Equipment for the Job
• Honey extractors
• Uncapping knife
• Honey strainers
• Other handy gadgets for extracting honey
• Comb honey equipment
• Honey containers
• Planning Your Honey Harvest Set-Up
• Labelling and Selling Your Honey
• Creating an attractive label
• Finding places to market your honey
• Chapter 14: Honey, I’m Home: Harvest Time
• Knowing When to Harvest
• Getting the Bees Out of the Honey Supers
• Shakin’ ’em out
• Using a bee escape
• Fume board and bee repellent
• Food of the Gods: Honey Extraction
• Cleaning Up after Extracting
• Controlling wax moths
• Harvesting wax
• Part VI: The Part of Tens
• Chapter 15: Ten Fun Things to Do with Bees
• Starting an Observation Hive
• Planting Flowers for Your Bees
• Brewing Mead: The Nectar of the Gods
• Getting Creative with Propolis
• Propolis tincture
• Propolis ointment
• Making Candles and Polish from Beeswax
• Beeswax candles
• Beeswax furniture polish
• Beauty and the Bees
• Beeswax lip balm
• Beeswax and olive oil salve
• Getting up Close with a Microscope
• Chapter 16: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about Bee Behaviour
• Chapter 17: Ten Delicious Honey Recipes
• Appendix A: Helpful Resources
• Honey Bee Websites
• Apiservices
• Bee Master Forum
• BeeHoo
• British Beekeepers Association
• Bush Farm
• Cornwall Honey
• David A Cushman
• The Beespace
• Vita (Europe)
• Bee Organisations and Conferences
• Apimondia: International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations
• The BBKA Spring Convention
• Bee Diseases Insurance Ltd (BDI)
• Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association (BIBBA)
• International Bee Research Association
• The National Bee Unit of the Central Science Laboratory
• The National Honey Show
• The National Farmers Union
• Bee Journals and Magazines
• American Bee Journal
• BBKA News
• Bee Craft
• Bee Culture
• The Beekeepers Quarterly
• Bee World
• Beekeeping Supplies and Equipment
• The Bee Shop
• B J Sherriff
• Brunel Microscopes Ltd
• Compak
• Giordan
• Maisemore Apiaries Ltd
• Modern Beekeeping
• National Bee Supplies
• Swienty Beekeeping Equipment
• E H Thorne
• Appendix B: Glossary
• Index
• EULA