How to Keep Bees: A Beginner's Handbook

Originally published in the 1900s, this book has been prepared especially to meet the needs of the beginner in beekeeping. It is not intended to be a complete treatise for the professional apiarist, but rather a handbook for those who would keep bees for happiness and honey, and incidentally for money. It is hoped, too, that it will serve as an introduction to the more extended manuals already in the field.

When we began beekeeping we found the wide range of information and varying methods given in the manuals confusing; but a little experience taught us that beekeeping is a simple and delightful business which can be carried on in a modest way without a great amount of special training. After a beginning has been made, skill in managing the bees is gained naturally and inevitably, and interest is then stimulated by the wider outlook which bewilders the novice.

For the sake of simplicity this book is restricted to knowledge gained in practical experience in a small apiary; and the writer has sought to exclude from it those discussions which, however enlightening to the experienced, are after all but devious digressions from the simple and straight path which the feet of the inexperienced must tread to success in the apiary.

Contents Covered:

• Why Keep Bees
• How to Begin Beekeeping
• The Location and the Arrangement of the Apiary
• The Inhabitants of the Hive
• The Industries of the Hive
• The Swarming of Bees
• How to Keep from Keeping Too Many Bees
• The Hive and How to Handle It
• Details Concerning Honey
• Extracted Honey
• Points about Beeswax
• Feeding Bees
• How to Winter Bees
• Rearing and Introducing Queens
• Robbing in the Apiary
• The Enemies and Diseases of Bees
• The Anatomy of the Honey Bee
• Interrelation of Bees and Plants
• Beekeepers and Beekeeping
• Bee-Hunting