Keeping Bees With a Smile - Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping - Expanded 2nd Edition

THE UPDATED BESTSELLING GUIDE TO LAID-BACK BEEKEEPING FOR ALL, NATURALLY!

This book should be on every beekeeper's bookshelf.
— HANK WILL, author, Plowing with Pigs, Editorial Director, Mother Earth News
Learn about natural methods of beekeeping with minimal work and no boxes to lift.
— MICHAEL BUSH, author, The Practical Beekeeper

IN THE SECOND EDITION of the bestselling beekeeping guide Keeping Bees with a Smile, Fedor Lazutin, one of Europe's most successful natural beekeepers, shares the bee-friendly approach to apiculture that is fun, healthful, rewarding, and accessible to all. This new edition includes dozens of color photographs, new hive management techniques, and an updated version of "Lazutin hive" plans. Additional coverage includes:

• Keeping bees naturally without interfering in their lives
• Starting an apiary for free by attracting local bee swarms
• Building low-maintenance hives that mimic how bees live in nature
• Keeping colonies healthy and strong without any drugs or sugar
• Helping bees to overwinter successfully even in harsh climates
• Enhancing local nectar plant resources
• Producing truly natural honey without robbing the bees
• Reversing the global bee decline...right in your backyard!

Keeping Bees with a Smile is an invaluable resource for apiculture beginners and professionals alike, complete with plans for making bee-friendly, well-insulated horizontal hives with extra- deep frames, plus other fascinating beekeeping advice you won't find anywhere else.

A blueprint for creating a harmonious relationship between bees and their human partners.
— Bonnie Morse, Director, Bee Audacious

Fedor Lazutin was a natural beekeeper, homesteader, and advocate for habitat restoration and sustainable living in Russia.
Leo Sharashkin, PhD, is a full-time natural beekeeper and founder of HorizontalHive.com. He has edited numerous books on natural beekeeping, writes for major magazines, and speaks internationally on bee-friendly beekeeping. He keeps bees in the Ozarks of southern Missouri.

To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending select New Society Publishers books to its readers. This book is one of them.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword— The Bee Book That Makes Sense: A Roadmap to Natural Beekeeping
Part I: A Path to Natural Apiculture
A Brief Introduction
How It All Got Started
A Small Side Note
The Industrial and Natural Approaches
The Bee Colony's Intelligence
The Goals of This Book
The Tree Hollow as the Bees' Natural Home
Some Useful Facts about Comb
The Bee Colony's Developmental Cycle
A Year in the Life of a Bee Colony
A Word or Two on Wintering
The Ideal Comb: How Deep Is Deep Enough?
Winter Ventilation of the Beehive
Bee Races
The European Dark Bee
Bee Diseases
Symbiosis in Nature (A Philosophical Digression)
Bees and Their Enemies
A Bit of History
The History of the Frame
Modern Systems of Industrial Beekeeping
Bees in the Industrial Hive
A Word or Two about Swarming
"Little to Smile About"
Is There a Way Out?
The History of Horizontal Hives with Extra-Deep Frames
The Modern Horizontal Hive
The Horizontal Hive with Extra-Deep Frames
Using the Extra-Deep Frame
Part II: The Practice of Natural Apiculture
A Description of the Horizontal Hive with 25 Extra-Deep Frames
How to Keep Bees in a Horizontal Hive with Extra-Deep Frames
The Central Commandments of Natural Beekeeping
A Beekeeper's Tasks in Spring and Summer
Fall Procedures: Pulling Honey and Preparing for Winter
How to Make Extra-Deep Frames
Brushstrokes
How to Capture a Swarm in a Swarm Trap
Responsibility
Questions and Answers
Epilogue to Parts I and II
Part III: The Finer Points of Natural Beekeeping
Three Years Later
Principles of Natural Beekeeping Revisited
The Recipe for Success in Beekeeping
Nectar Resources
Bee Race and Colony Strength
On the Mean Bees
The Queen
The Vital Rhythms of a Bee Colony
The Death of Bee Colonies
Various Approaches to Natural Beekeeping
More on Supersedure
Swarming
How to Collect a Swarm
The Hive Entrance
Spring Inspection of Bee Colonies
Spring Buildup of Bee Colonies
Preparing for the Main Honeyflow
The Main Honeyflow and the Second Half of Summer
Pulling Honey and Preparing for Winter
Questions and Answers
Part IV: How Bee Colonies Winter, And How to Make Wintering as Successful as Possible
Introduction
The Facts: What You Must Know about the Wintering Process of an Individual Bee and of the Colony as a Whole
The Colony's Main Job During the Winter
The Thermal Physics of a Wintering Colony
Bee Respiration in the Winter Cluster
The Role of Water in the Wintering Process
The Search for the Ideal Home for a Bee Colony
The Physiological Condition of a Colony as It Enters the Winter Period
Winter Reserves
The Location of Winter Reserves
The European Dark Bee
Wintering Indoors
Conclusions to Part IV
Afterword
Afterword to the Second Edition: Natural Beekeeping Accessible to All
Appendix 1: How to Make Swarm Traps and Capture Swarms
Appendix 2: How to Produce, Install, and Unite Swarms
Appendix 3: Nucs: What to Expect and How to Handle Them
Appendix 4: Operations Throughout the Year
Appendix 5: How to Build a Horizontal Hive with Extra-Deep Frames (Version 1)
Appendix 6: How to Build a Horizontal Hive with Extra-Deep Frames (Version 2)
Appendix 7: Lazutin Hive Plans (US Version 4— New)
Appendix 8: Summary Handouts
Glossary
Index
About the Author / Editor
About New Society Publishers

About the author

Fedor Lazutin was one of Europe's leading natural beekeepers, the author of bestselling natural beekeeping guide Keeping Bees with a Smile. He founded a number of model apiaries southwest of Moscow, Russia, championed habitat restoration projects, and served as the first president of Russia's Ecovillage Union.
Leo Sharashkin, PhD, is a full-time natural beekeeper and founder of HorizontalHive.com He has edited numerous books on natural beekeeping, writes for major magazines, and speaks internationally on bee-friendly beekeeping. He holds a PhD in Forestry from the University of Missouri and a master's in Natural Resources from Indiana University. Sharashkin's forest apiaries are composed entirely of local wild honeybees housed in bee-friendly horizontal hives. He lives in the Ozarks of southern Missouri.

Summary

The second edition of bestselling Keeping Bees with a Smile shows beginner and practicing beekeepers how to attract local bee swarms, keep bees healthy and productive, build simple bee-friendly hives, and harvest honey without stressing bees. Chock-full of techniques for natural beekeeping.

Foreword

• Co-op available
• Galleys available to sales reps
• Digital galleys on Edelweiss
• National advertising: Mother Earth News, Hobby Farms, Urban Farm, GRIT, Bee Culture
• National print campaign: Mother Earth News, Hobby Farms, Urban Farm, GRIT, American Bee Journal, Bee Culture
• Online/social media campaign:
  • Outreach to beekeeping associations across the US and homestead blog network
  • Promotion on New Society Publishers social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, our blog, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube
• General eBook marketing plan
  • eBook will be available at the same time as print publication to maximize sales
  • eBook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed
  • publisher and author will be promoting both e and p through social media
• Excerpts target for first serial rights: Mother Earth News, Hobby Farms, GRIT, American Bee Journal, Bee Culture
• Promotion through Sharashkin's website: www.HorizontalHive.com

Product details

• Authors: Fedor Lazutin
• Assisted by: Leo Sharashkin (Editor), Mark Pettus (Translation)
• Publisher: New society publishing
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.05.2020
• EAN: 9780865719279
• ISBN: 978-0-86571-927-9
• No. of pages: 400
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 230 mm x 25 mm
• Series: Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series
• Subjects: Guides > Nature; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); HOUSE & HOME / Sustainable Living, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Agriculture & Food, Food & society, Green lifestyle & self-sufficiency, Cultural studies: food & society, AGRICULTURE & FARMING, Sustainable agriculture, Food & Gardening, Self-sufficiency & ‘green’ lifestyle