The Rooftop Beekeeper: A Scrappy Guide to Keeping Urban Honeybees

by Megan Paska, Masako Kubo (Illustrator), Alex Brown (Photographer)

Join the growing number of urban beekeepers with this comprehensive guide—featuring photos, honey recipes, and more—by Brooklyn’s go-to apiarist. Despite living in the most populous borough in New York City, Megan Paska has established herself as a sought-after, professional beekeeper. In The Rooftop Beekeeper, she shares essential advice, plus tips on how to get the most out of your honeybees. Paska shares her own personal experiences while offering practical checklists, numbered how-tos, beautiful illustrations, and seventy-five color photographs. Covering all aspects of urban beekeeping, this book also provides readers with plenty of sweet recipes for delicious treats, tonics, and beauty products to make with home-harvested honey.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 25, 2014

Reviews

[Gayle]

I read this book because I have been thinking about putting a couple of hives in my yard. It was a fascinating read, but it did dissuade me from getting into beekeeping, which was probably not the author's goal. She did a great job. I just felt that beekeeping was more work than I had envisioned and was not for me.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The honeybee is the most efficient pollinator on the planet. In fact, one of every three bites of food we take is the direct result of insect pollination.” 🐝🌻🍯

If you asked me a couple of years ago about my thoughts on bees I would have had some very strong negative opinions about them. As I started growing a garden and paying more attention to the natural environment around me, I have become more and more fascinated by them. I am always trying to find new ways to bring pollinators into my garden and while I am nowhere near ready to have my own hive, I have enjoyed reading and researching over the past year about the life of honeybees and how to keep them. Maybe someday, I can take the leap and become a backyard beekeeper. Someday.

This book was so informative and covered all of the basics while holding my interest. I recommend it to anyone who may be just learning or even if you have any interest in beekeeping at all. The author did an excellent job of breaking down all of the covered topics into easy to follow parts. And although the title mentions “urban” and “rooftop” beekeeping, I feel it was written for all beginner beekeepers: urban, rural, and suburban. It is definitely one for the bookshelf as we continue our goal of learning different ways to be self-sufficient.

[⭐Natalie⭐ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me want to buy overalls and a bee hive.

While the book was really informative and inspiring, I do realize it was not a full instructional guide. If anything I would hold onto this after taking the formal classes, as the writer recommends. It does not sugar coat (or shall I say honey coat) but it does look at bees with adoration. And now I really want bees and lightwash overalls.

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed this from my library without reading the description so I was expecting something more memoir-ish. This is actually just a how-to book. It was thorough and I learned a good bit, but I don't have any interest in setting up my own bee hives.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75. A great guide to new/interested beekeepers - full of insightful tips, instructions and stories that's bound to get anyone interested in beekeeping. It's quite practical, but also nicely informative! Also good to read if you're just interested in the world of bees and beekeeping (like me) :)

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

Very informative book to learn bee keeping, the information in this book is useful whether you are setting up a huge in the city of the countryside.

[Macrae]

Not sure why I felt compelled to read this, but now I want to keep bees on my roof.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very personal account of bee keeping. The author provides lots of information and stories about her interest in bees. Her detailed information is largely about keeping bees on the rooftop of apartments in New York City. There is very good information about inspecting hives and care of bees. Attitude towards bees is also well covered. There are lots of helpful photographs.

Parts of this book are hard to comment on as some of the information is for areas (parts of the USA) where bees have very specific over wintering requirements.

For an excelletn Australian urban bee keeping book see Backyard Bees: A Guide for the Beginner Beekeeper

[Brian Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a great book for anyone interested in beekeeping. It is just as the title explains, 'A Scrappy Guide'. If you want more detail, and I'm sure there are those who would, I am sure there are may otehr books available on the subject that would tailor more to your interest. I am interested in possibly starting bee keeping and this book really helped me form my thoughts.

If you are interested in learning about beekeeping at all I recommend this book. It provides a great overview of the process of beekeeping from buying your hive, bees, all the way through your first harvest and winter with the bees. Megan provides some detailed lists that take you step by step through processes like checking the hive, harvesting honey, and introducing the queen.

[Helen K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exactly the book I needed to start out with. It gave a good overview of what to expect season by season, what happens during hive inspection, harvesting, and capturing swarms... A lot of it was taken from the standpoint of using Langstroth hives (the most commonly used in the US) so I'll have to get educated elsewhere on where things differ with top bar hives (what I'd like to use) but I intend to keep this book on my shelf.

[Meowzette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar beginner's guide

I've dreamt of beekeeping for years - taken classes, read numerous books and this one ranks in the top. Very down to earth, easy to understand - Megan builds your confidence thru her experience. This book is very informative and the step by step instructions are clear and concise. The recipes in the end of the book are a delight. I highly recommend to any aspiring beekeeper.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Might be better if I was ready to actively start keeping bees, otherwise I found it kind of clinical and repetitive. There are a few good pictures, but mostly I found them random; I had hoped that the pictures would either be abundant and beautiful or that they would help to illustrate the text - they did neither. I learned a little, I was confused a lot, but I wasn't really entertained or inspired. Maybe I'm just not as interested in urban beekeeping as I thought I was!

[Garrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little overwhelming on the details of long-term care and underwhelming on the basics and start-up stuff I was looking for; "a Langstroth Hive is about as easy to assemble as furniture from Ikea" is NOT a real description, for instance, and a little cutesy for my tastes, too.

Luckily, I got another bee book for Xmas, and there are professionals around my city.

[goldslippersandpinkheels · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good overview to keeping bees in an urban setting. Also I absolutely loved the illustrations. This is such a pretty book!

[Waander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leuke engelstalige gids, geschreven als had je een persoonlijke coach bij de hand. Hoofdstukken geschikt volgens wat enthousiaste starters als eerste willen weten. Natuurlijk zijn niet alle seizoens- en weersafhankelijke werkwijzen zonder meer over te nemen in Europa.