mistress beek

This is the book I wish existed when I started beekeeping in 2008. Loaded with photos and step-by-step instructions, it’s one of the few books that will help you survive your first year, especially if you don’t have a mentor.

Homegrown Honey Bees: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Beekeeping Your First Year

Pros:

• Photos, photos, photos! Everything from eggs and larvae to wax festooning to varroa mites to Nasonov fanning gets a gorgeous photo. See examples at the end of this post.
• Step-by-step instructions are included for a variety of beginner tasks like installing a package, lighting a smoker, and conducting your first hive check. Seasoned beekeepers often forget how scary these first steps can be.
• A personal storyline. This book follows the author’s experience keeping backyard bees with her family. The good the bad and the ugly details are all included, making for a very forgiving and human narrative.
• Interviews with local beeks. Backyard beekeepers from San Francisco to Austin to Chicago are highlighted throughout the book. (I’m on page 47. Yay.) The sheer variety of beekeepers presented makes a new beek feel comfortable developing their own unique approach.
• A natural approach. Most books I used in my first year were very chemical-centric and solely devoted to Langstroth hives. This book primarily covers Langstroth hives but also discusses top bar hives and pays more than just lip-service to a chemical-free approach.

Cons:

Once you have a full year of beekeeping under your belt, you’ll want to move on to more substantial reference books like The Beekeeper’s Handbook or The Practical Beekeeper.

The world is filled with postures of certainty, like a well-honed consumer behavior study or the latest microeconomic manifesto. And that, my friends, is why I keep bees.

I keep bees for the pure moments of surprise, doubt, and confusion that inevitably arise when I least expect them…

• When the burgeoning hive that towers like a honey-filled monster in my backyard disappears without a trace while I’m in Sweden.
• When the walkaway split that I created like a reckless cowgirl manages to A) raise a queen; B) mate the queen; C) return the queen before her sisters revolt; and D) grow a new generation in time for winter.
• When the perfect hive succumbs like a midnight victim to varroa.
• When the underdog colony I presumed dead in March turns out to be jammed full of bees and blasting into summer.

I keep bees for the magic of utterly unexpected moments filled with challenge and hope; disappointment and glittering joy. I keep bees for all that I could never hope to control.

Once a month, the initiates gather. From all corners of the ancient Rio Grande valley, we come like seekers on the clandestine path. Once a month, we enter the hallowed chambers…

In other words, here’s what goes down at beekeeping meetings throughout the year for Albuquerque beeks.

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Dancing Neil installs a package

If you’re looking for a little guidance on installing your first package of bees, this is a great annotation of the process:

Installing a Package of Russian Bees