The Backyard Beekeeper, 4th Edition cover art

The Backyard Beekeeper, 4th Edition

An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden

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About this listen

The Backyard Beekeeper, now in its 4th edition, makes the time-honored and complex tradition of beekeeping an enjoyable and accessible backyard pastime for urban and rural beekeepers of all skill levels.

More than a guide to beekeeping, this audiobook features expert advice for:

  • Setting up and caring for your own colonies
  • Selecting the best location to place your new bee colonies for their safety and yours
  • The most practical and nontoxic ways to care for your bees
  • Swarm control
  • Using top bar hives
  • Harvesting the products of a beehive and collecting and using honey
  • Bee problems and treatments


What’s New?

  • Information for urban bees and beekeepers
  • Using your smoker the right way
  • Better pest management
  • Providing consistent and abundant good food
  • Keeping your hives healthy


With this complete resource and the expert advice of Bee Culture editor Kim Flottum, your bees will be healthy, happy, and more productive.

Agricultural & Food Sciences Animals Biological Sciences Outdoors & Nature Science Sustainable & Green Living

Critic reviews

“Kim Flottum’s expert advice is a comprehensive introduction to getting started with your own backyard hives. The book itself is also visually appealing: large photographs, illustrations, and callouts appear on nearly every page.”—Keeping Backyard Bees
“A stunningly beautiful and wonderfully thorough guidebook for the beginning beekeeper.”—Thomas D. Seeley, author of "Honey Bee Democracy," "Following the Wild Bees," "Honey Bee Ecology," and "The Behavior and Social Life of Honey Bees."
“The Backyard Beekeeper provides a concise and lucid introduction to the art of keeping bee colonies. A thorough introduction of bee diseases and problems guides the new beekeeper through some difficult but common challenges.”—Lawrence John Connor, founding member of Wicwas Press LLC and author of many essential beekeeping guides
“The Backyard Beekeeper presents a modern look at traditional beekeeping. Numerous photos and diagrams supplement good, clearly written, beekeeping information. Particularly useful, the 25 Rules section provides current beekeeping fundamentals for successful beehive management. This is an excellent text for anyone interested in becoming a knowledgeable beekeeper.”—James E. Tew, PhD, beekeeping specialist, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Auburn University, and author of "The Beekeeper's Problem Solver" and "Wisdom for Beekeepers"
All stars
Most relevant
I've paid for quite a few Beekeeping books here and there is a lot of rubbish so it's really nice to come across a good informative book. If you are starting out then start with the Idiots Guide (seriously it's a brilliant start), then listen to this one. If you're outside the US you'll need to adapt eg for the Bee Keeping Association to join, but this is definitely worth a listen and learn.

If you want to be a Beekeeper this is book No2 to listen to.

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