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Increase Essentials
Popular beekeeping lecturer and Bee Culture magazine author Dr. Larry Connor examines essentials aspects of making new bee colonies, from swarms or packages, pruchased hives or nuclei. He looks at the impact of modern life on bees and beekeeping, and the changes and challenges every beekeeper faces in light of varroa mites and African bees. He suggest that for many beekeepers, the option of wintering nucleus colonies provides a source of fresh bees, locally acclimatized queens, replacement hives, colonies for operational growth, and colonies for sale. Drawing on the concepts of Langstroth, Doolittle and Brother Adam (Buckfast Abbey), Connor distills his unique academic and commercial beekeeping experiences -- working with bees, beekeeping, queen rearing, colony managment and pollination -- and creates a concise and thought-provoking work.
128 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published June 3, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 9, 2021
A good overview, and useful to me in organizing how I do splits and make nucs, but not terribly systematic. You have to work with the author to extract the knowledge. You have to think about why certain techniques are supposed to work, and if you're going to use the underlying principles, you may need to reread and underline, and maybe sketch out what's involved. That's what I've done, and I'd say that for me, it's worth the effort.
September 17, 2017
Great book with good info
January 17, 2020
Good information on how and why to increase your bee colonies. Hopefully I'll put this information to work this year in early spring.
May 3, 2012
Actually, I read this twice in the last few weeks. Connor writes far easier on the brain and more casual than any Honeybee text I've read so far. I just came home from a demonstration and lecture by Dr. Connor tonight, and I appreciate his simple tone for those not quite new to beekeeping nor advanced.
His main point is that by increasing the number of hives you have through the raising of Nuclear Hives (Nucs or Baby Beehives), which later stay small or become full-sized hives, you can open up the possibilities for your beeyard. The goal is to raise the average honey crop or success rate among your hives while creating more, most of which I can do without buying bees from somebody else, though raised queens come in handy. Once you have enough hives to fully manipulate them together toward greater success, you stand pretty and can do lots of mad sick things.
This book really encouraged me that I'm headed in the right direction.
His main point is that by increasing the number of hives you have through the raising of Nuclear Hives (Nucs or Baby Beehives), which later stay small or become full-sized hives, you can open up the possibilities for your beeyard. The goal is to raise the average honey crop or success rate among your hives while creating more, most of which I can do without buying bees from somebody else, though raised queens come in handy. Once you have enough hives to fully manipulate them together toward greater success, you stand pretty and can do lots of mad sick things.
This book really encouraged me that I'm headed in the right direction.
November 10, 2013
Great book, if you need to know how to propagate bees. High rating probably indicates my bias. 8)
January 29, 2014
Loved the book, wanted better pictures!
May 13, 2009
Great book for any beekeeper
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews