Natural Beekeeping
Natural Beekeeping: Organic
Approaches to Modern Apiculture by Ross Conrad is the
beekeeping equivalent of Weedless
Gardening or Gardening
When it Counts
--- an intermediate text for those of us who want to reach beyond the
mainstream, chemical techniques. I love these intermediate books
because they tend to turn me onto topics to experiment with on our own
homestead, but you have to take the whole category with a grain of
salt.
For example,
intermediate texts tend to fill up space with beginner's information
that their intermediate readers don't need while not providing enough
of
that basic info to take the place of a book like The Backyard
Beekeeper.
Especially in the case of this book, intermediate texts often lack
essential organization and are prone to extended bouts of
philosphizing. And although the author makes a concerted effort
to pull together
related information from the literature and from other beekeepers, Natural
Beekeeping is
essentially the summation of one man's experiences trying to raise
healthy hives without chemicals in Vermont. (Hmm, those flaws
sound a lot like the flaws of our blog....)
I guess what I'm trying
to say is, don't take any book like this as the
gospel, but do mine out as much data as possible. Which is
exactly what I've done for this week's lunchtime series. If
you've never petted a bee, the information I present might be too
confusing, but I hope established beekeepers will enjoy seeing a
different perspective on bee care.
| This post is part of our Natural Beekeeping lunchtime series.
Read all of the entries: |
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
- Remove comment
- Remove comment