First Time Beekeeping

First Time Beekeeping is a reformat and re-release tutorial instruction guide for the people who want to get started with bees. Originally published in unabridged form in 2010, this edition is due out 11th Aug 2020 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint. It's 128 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This is a compact, well written, accessible guide to sourcing, choosing, and succeeding with beekeeping as a hobby. This guide presupposes no prior experience and covers all the basics including equipment, siting, getting started, and bees themselves. For a short(ish) book, it's quite comprehensive and will definitely provide enough good factual information to help new keepers avoid the most common mistakes. Sidebars throughout highlight important information keeping it easier to find. The photography throughout is clear and easy to follow. There's a good chapter on how-to perform the tasks necessary to keep bees healthy and (hopefully) happy and includes troubleshooting information on controlling diseases, inspections, and fall/winter management of the hives.

The book also includes a resource links list as well as a cross referenced index.

This would make a good selection for the smallholder's library or for anyone information-gathering before making the commitment to start beekeeping. I've been keeping bees off and on for 50+ years (I learned at my grandfather's side), and I still *strongly* recommend getting a mentor and finding like minded beekeepers to get off to a good start, but this book will definitely fill a gap and provide enough information to at least get started with beekeeping.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

I just love beginner books and this one was no different! I’ve been reading about beekeeping lately and I’m interested in keeping bee’s solely for pollinating my garden and helping the environment. However this book delves into the care and housing a bee hive more intimately than my needs. Still it’s a very resourceful book.

What did I like? The pictures of sticking your hands into the beehive gloveless made me cringe. Wow, I envy your bravery. My interest in beekeeping are slight versus the author. So many unanswered questions.. my reality though is to find the nearest beekeeper with some knowledge and just go look. I don’t care how much you read, every farmers market has someone selling honey that’s local and seeing is what’s going to sell it to me.

Would I buy or recommend? Very good book with some great info but this could be quite dangerous if you’ve never been stung. This book delves a bit more into the hive and care of it than others that I have read which makes it a good buy. If your really serious though I’d encourage going to see one live and in person. I just don’t think that just a book will cover everything, and the author encourages joining a bee group locally.

I received a copy to read and offer an opinion. Four stars!

With recent research into the importance of bees becoming more accessible in society, this book is very important for the upcoming beekeepers. This can be used for secondary pupils as a research text or for adults as a guide to starting this for a hobby or the basis of a new career. The writing style is user friendly and accessible to all types of readers.

As someone who has always loved and been fascinated by bees but knows little about them, I have found this book to be the ideal introduction. It covers all the basic knowledge needed to get started, however I think there is no substitute for learning hands on from an expert. This book provides enough of a starter to make those first sessions worthwhile. I am planning to take up bee keeping as a hobby later this year under the guidance of a mentor and this has served to make me even more confident and positive.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* My husbands family had bees for years and when I saw this book I wanted to read it to learn a few things, seems like a really good, practical, easy to follow book for beekeeping!

This book was very interesting and informative - the pictures were especially helpful since I am still trying to learn the names of some of the different parts of the hive, tools, etc. This truly is a beginner's step-by-step guide to the keeping of bees.