Keeping Bees with a Smile

Keeping Bees with a Smile

The updated bestselling guide to laid-back beekeeping for all, naturally!

Are you a beginner beekeeper curious about bees or a practicing beekeeper looking for natural alternatives that work? Then this book is for you!

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, sugar, or gimmickry
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.

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