Raising Resilient Bees

Raising Resilient Bees
Author: Joy McEwen
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2023-07-20
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1645021947

With over 100 color photographs and illustrations, Raising Resilient Bees is the comprehensive source for new and experienced beekeepers, offering a sustainable, natural, and repeatable model of care for hive health and production. Global pests and diseases present an unprecedented challenge for the modern honey bee. Hobby and commercial beekeepers alike continue to experience troubling rates of mortality for their colonies, with potentially deleterious consequences for the stability of our wider ecosystems and overall food security. It is time for a global focus on restoring the health of the shared apiary through naturally reared, genetically diverse, and resilient lines of bees. Raising Resilient Bees establishes these parameters and provides guidance for new and experienced beekeepers alike to translate these goals into real practice, thereby safeguarding the honey bee from the unknown threats of the future. Authors Eric and Joy McEwen take two decades worth of beekeeping experience, experiments, and professional production to deliver groundbreaking methods in queen-rearing, varroa mite management, and Natural Nest hive design. Inside, you’ll discover: • Revived and adapted heritage Integrated Pest Management techniques • How to naturally rear queens and select for resilient, mite-resistant genetic lines without relying on swarming or grafting • Key tenets of apicentric beekeeping • Advice for establishing a flourishing and sustainable business with beekeeping at the center • How to naturally rear bees with distinctive characteristics suitable to their locale As in large-scale agriculture, the trend toward genetic homogenization is having long-term implications for bees’ capacity to withstand diverse environmental stressors. With expert advice, enthusiasm, and easy-to-follow instructions, Raising Resilient Bees delivers important and timely information for every beekeeper to create a healthier future.

Raising Resilient Bees

Raising Resilient Bees
Author: Eric McEwen
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2023-07-20
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1645021955

"Right from the start, this book takes you on a journey that is fascinating and thought-provoking. . . The McEwens demonstrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking and challenge traditional ways of keeping bees."—American Bee Journal With over 100 color photographs and illustrations, Raising Resilient Bees is the comprehensive source for new and experienced beekeepers, offering a sustainable, natural, and repeatable model of care for hive health and production. Global pests and diseases present an unprecedented challenge for the modern honey bee. Hobby and commercial beekeepers alike continue to experience troubling rates of mortality for their colonies, with potentially deleterious consequences for the stability of our wider ecosystems and overall food security. It is time for a global focus on restoring the health of the shared apiary through naturally reared, genetically diverse, and resilient lines of bees. Raising Resilient Bees establishes these parameters and provides guidance for new and experienced beekeepers alike to translate these goals into real practice, thereby safeguarding the honey bee from the unknown threats of the future. Authors Eric and Joy McEwen take two decades worth of beekeeping experience, experiments, and professional production to deliver groundbreaking methods in queen-rearing, varroa mite management, and Natural Nest hive design. Inside, you’ll discover: Revived and adapted heritage Integrated Pest Management techniques How to naturally rear queens and select for resilient, mite-resistant genetic lines without relying on swarming or grafting Key tenets of apicentric beekeeping Advice for establishing a flourishing and sustainable business with beekeeping at the center How to naturally rear bees with distinctive characteristics suitable to their locale As in large-scale agriculture, the trend toward genetic homogenization is having long-term implications for bees’ capacity to withstand diverse environmental stressors. With expert advice, enthusiasm, and easy-to-follow instructions, Raising Resilient Bees delivers important and timely information for every beekeeper to create a healthier future. “Vivid, practical, evidence-based . . . . Biodynamic and organic beekeepers will applaud the authors’ use of ‘natural nest hives’ with single-size boxes and vertically uninterrupted brood nests, populated with locally adapted bees and naturally reared queens.”—David Heaf, author of The Bee-Friendly Beekeeper; bee-friendly.co.uk “The McEwens look at every aspect of a honey bee’s life in this book—pest and disease issues, living space, the genetics of resistance and tolerance, qualities of successful queens, optimal feeding, and seasonal management that fits the bee above the beekeeper.”—Kim Flottum, author of The Backyard Beekeeper; podcast producer, Growing Planet Media

Natural Beekeeping

Natural Beekeeping
Author: Ross Conrad
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2013-03-08
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1603583637

Whether you are a novice looking to get started with bees, an experienced apiculturist looking for ideas to develop an integrated pest-management approach, or someone who wants to sell honey at a premium price, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. Now revised and updated with new resources and including full-color photos throughout, Natural Beekeeping offers all the latest information in a book that has already proven invaluable for organic beekeepers. The new edition offers the same holistic, sensible alternative to conventional chemical practices with a program of natural hive management, but offers new sections on a wide range of subjects, including: The basics of bee biology and anatomy Urban beekeeping Identifying and working with queens Parasitic mite control Hive diseases Also, a completely new chapter on marketing provides valuable advice for anyone who intends to sell a wide range of hive products. Other chapters include: Hive Management Genetics and Breeding The Honey Harvest The Future of Organic Beekeeping Ross Conrad brings together the best “do no harm” strategies for keeping honeybees healthy and productive with nontoxic methods of controlling mites; eliminating American foulbrood disease without the use of antibiotics; selective breeding for naturally resistant bees; and many other detailed management techniques, which are covered in a thoughtful, matter-of-fact way.

Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities

Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities
Author: Luke Dixon
Publisher: Timber Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2012-09-18
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1604692871

Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities features everything an urbanite needs to know to start keeping bees: how to select the perfect hive, how to buy bees, how to care for a colony, how to harvest honey, and what to do in the winter. Urban beekeeping has particular challenges and needs, and this book highlights the challenges and presents practices that are safe, legal, and neighbor-friendly. The text is rounded out with profiles of urban beekeepers from all over the world, including public hives at the Maryland Center for Horticulture, beekeeping on an office balcony in Melbourne, Australia, and a poolside hive at a hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Biodynamic Beekeeping

Biodynamic Beekeeping
Author: Matthias Thun
Publisher: Floris Books
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1782506861

Modern beekeeping, influenced by new technologies and breeding methods, has increased honey production but left bee colonies weak and vulnerable to disease. With the alarming decline of the bee population raising concerns about an impending ecological crisis, many beekeepers are seeking a more sustainable way of caring for bees. Biodynamic Beekeeping is the first book to offer practical instruction on caring for bees using biodynamic theories and methods. By considering the influence of the movement of the stars and the planets on the bees' natural habits, biodynamics encourages beekeepers to be more in tune with their bees indicating, for example, the best days on which to inspect colonies or gather honey. This fascinating book offers beekeepers detailed advice and instruction on how to work more holistically, including: the challenges and advantages of breeding queen bees how to artificially induce swarming to propagae colonies how to use biodynamic ashing techniques to combat varroa mites instructions for making winter-feed according to current biodynamic thinking

Applied Beekeeping in the United States

Applied Beekeeping in the United States
Author: David Macfawn
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2020-11-12
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781977232564

The beginner as well as the experienced professional will garner a hive full of information from Applied Beekeeping in the United States. Honeybee information has been compiled and published in book form in hopes that beekeepers in the United States and worldwide will benefit. There are many topics in this book not contained in more theoretical books and through 342 pages, supplemented by 246 full-color photographs, both the novice and experienced beekeeper will take away new knowledge. This book is a collection of articles published in Bee Culture, Beekeeping: The First Three Years, and American Bee Journal over the last five to eight years plus some unpublished information and articles. The information covers a broad range of beekeeping topics from basic beekeeping (smokers, moving hives, pulling honey, going through a colony, laying workers, the bee-year, splitting, extracting your honey crop, when is a colony worth saving, swarming, drawing out comb, feeders, installing a package of bees, safety in the beeyard, frames and foundation, beeswax candles, bottom boards, walk-away splits, feeding, rotating old comb, determining how many colonies to have at each location), equipment (assembling frames and foundation, assembling equipment), planning (establishing out-yards, sales and marketing, pollination, mentoring, starting a bee club) and finance (when and how much equipment should you purchase), and much more. David MacFawn has over 50 years' experience working with honey bees, mainly in the southeastern United States.

Common Sense Natural Beekeeping

Common Sense Natural Beekeeping
Author: Kim Flottum
Publisher:
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1631599550

Common Sense Natural Beekeeping teaches aspiring as well as experienced beekeepers how to keep their bees healthy and productive without depending on unnatural chemical or human intervention.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition

The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition
Author: Ben Falk
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2024-02-08
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 1645021114

“This is one of the most practical, down-to-earth, dirt-under-the-fingernails, comprehensive explanations of all things homesteading and small farming. Whether you’re just dreaming or an old hand, Ben Falk’s longer experience horizon is invaluable.”—Joel Salatin, cofounder, Polyface Farm; author of Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal Informed by twenty years of successful land management and the professional design experience of his pioneering firm Whole Systems Design, LLC, author Ben Falk updates his classic text and delivers the definitive twenty-first century systems thinking manual in self-reliance—sure to empower readers to prioritize projects, make positive lifestyle decisions, and take strategic steps toward a regenerative future. In The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition Falk describes how he has transformed a degraded hillside in the frigid Vermont climate into a thriving, biodiverse Eden that now provides year-round abundance for his family and community. First published in 2013, The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a comprehensive how-to guide for building durable and productive land-based systems through the reciprocal interplay of humans and the natural world. In the ten years since he first published this seminal work, Falk has deepened his wisdom in harnessing nature-based solutions for increasingly challenging times, including addressing severe climate disruptions like drought and flood conditions. The book covers every strategy Falk and his team have tested on the Whole Systems Research Farms over the past two decades and includes detailed information on earthworks, gravity-fed water systems, soil fertility management, growing nutrient-dense food and medicine, fuelwood production, agroforestry, managed grazing, and much more. Complete with full-color photography and detailed design drawings, The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition includes new information on: Designing greenhouses and microclimates Reinvigorating human health and embodying a vigorous lifestyle Raising children on a homestead Creating failure-proof and resilient energy systems Focusing on permaculture beekeeping Cultivating proven cold climate plants Overcoming analysis paralysis and mastering the art of knowing where to start and when to take strategic risks And much, much more! In an age that feels defined by disconnection, disease, and decline, The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition offers a roadmap to conquering uncertainty, maximizing efficiency, and creating a bountiful, manageable landscape that will endure. “Essential reading for the serious prepper as well as for everyone interested in creating a more resilient lifestyle.”—Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener “This intelligent, challenging book, rooted somewhere between back-to-the-land idealism and radical survivalism, sees resilience as both planting and building for the use of future generations, but also as preparing food, water, shelter, and the human body and psyche for the onset of any imaginable extreme emergency. . . . The result is a comprehensive, open-ended, theoretical and practical system for a post-carbon-dependent life.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review of first edition)

Natural Beekeeping

Natural Beekeeping
Author: Ross Conrad
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2013
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603583629

Today's beekeepers face unprecedented challenges, a fact that is now front-page news with the spread of "colony collapse disorder." Newly introduced pests like varroa and tracheal mites have made chemical treatment of hives standard practice, but pest resistance is building, which in turn creates demand for new and even more toxic chemicals. In fact, there is evidence that chemical treatments are making matters worse. It's time for a new approach. Now revised and updated with new resources and including full-color photos throughout, Natural Beekeeping offers all the latest information in a book that has already proven invaluable for organic beekeepers. The new edition offers the same holistic, sensible alternative to conventional chemical practices with a program of natural hive management, but offers new sections on a wide range of subjects, including: The basics of bee biology and anatomy Urban beekeeping Identifying and working with queens Parasitic mite control Hive diseases Also, a completely new chapter on marketing provides valuable advice for anyone who intends to sell a wide range of hive products.Ross Conrad brings together the best "do no harm" strategies for keeping honeybees healthy and productive with nontoxic methods of controlling mites; eliminating American foulbrood disease without the use of antibiotics; selective breeding for naturally resistant bees; and many other detailed management techniques, which are covered in a thoughtful, matter-of-fact way. Whether you are a novice looking to get started with bees, an experienced apiculturist looking for ideas to develop an integrated pest-management approach, or someone who wants to sell honey at a premium price, this is the book you've been waiting for.

The Hopkins Method for Raising Queens in Your Small Apiary

The Hopkins Method for Raising Queens in Your Small Apiary
Author: Joe Conti
Publisher: Northern Bee Books
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2021-12-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781914934254

Joe Conti, a Bronx NY, USA native, has lived in the state of Georgia in the USA for 35 years. He has a MS degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Florida and worked as a Wildlife Biologist specializing in wildlife diseases at both the Universities of Florida and Georgia. He has published on a variety of issues related to wildlife, including articles in the American Bee Journal. He also taught Biology and Environmental Science in Middle and High School. A beekeeper for 26 years, Joe has served as President of the Oglethorpe County (GA) Bee Club, and in various positions for it and the Eastern Piedmont Beekeepers Association (Athens GA). He currently is enjoying retired life (and his bees!) on his 6-acre parcel in rural Oglethorpe County.