Keeping Bees with a Smile: Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

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.