Beekeeping - A practical guide for
southern Africa
(2nd edition)

ISBN 9780958478571
For press clippings about this book, click here.

Beekeeping is a comparatively low investment activity which requires only beehives, protective clothing and a few simple tools. It is also a truly sustainable agricultural activity. The honeybee is a natural resource, land ownership is unnecessary and there is no daily routine of feeding, watering and medicating. Along with the reward of a crop of honey and other useful hive products, the finest fruit, vegetables and seed result from bee pollination.

This book is dedicated to the Bushman people, the first people of southern Africa, who have sustained their relationship with the honeybee for thousands of years. Each chapter ends with a story or legend which reflects this relationship.

Beekeeping: A practical guide for southern Africa is designed to:
  • encourage and inspire potential beekeepers (hobbyists, rural people, farmworkers and entrepreneurs setting up small business initiatives),
  • provide support for commercial beekeepers and their employees,
  • satisfy the curiosity of anyone fascinated by the organised society of the honeybee, and
  • provide a store of useful data on bees and beekeeping, seasoned with a blend of interesting information and folklore.
John Phipps, editor of two international magazines for beekeepers (Beekeeper's Quarterly and Bee Biz) had this to say about the book:

'I am impressed by the breadth of this book as it covers the management of the two species of honeybee and their keeping in conventional and top bar hives. Indeed, not only does the book cover anything that the beekeeper is likely to need by way of information, but the detail is especially excellent regarding the practical side of apiary work - the contents of the tool box, the examining of colonies and special jobs like queen rearing, swarming control, honey removal, etc. I like the fact that whether beekeepers are working in a traditional, rural way, as hobbyists, or in commercial enterprises, their needs are fully met. The section on the transferring of wild colonies to hives is the most detailed and clear description of the process that I have ever come across. Apitherapy, planning and records, forage sources, biology ... everything is there and the diagrams complement the text really well.

'In addition to all of the above are the delightfully illustrated anecdotes of traditional beekeeping. The authors have packed a lot in what actually seems, at first glance, to be a relatively small book.'

Contents

  1. The honeybee in nature
  2. About the honeybee
  3. Beekeeping kit and tools
  4. Apiary sites
  5. Beehives
  6. Beginning beekeeping
  7. Hive management
  8. Feeding bees
  9. Special management
  10. Queen rearing
  11. Bee plants
  12. Honey
  13. Supering and harvesting honey
  14. Honey extraction
  15. Costing and marketing honey
  16. Other hive products and their use
  17. Beeswax
  18. Pollination
  19. Rural beeeeping
  20. Pests, diseases and other problems
Other sources of information
Beekeeping terms
Index

Click here for more about the authors.

  • Title: Beekeeping - A practical guide for southern Africa (Second edition)
  • Author: Dominique Marchand, Jenny Marchand-Mayne
  • ISBN: 9780958478571
  • Book specifications: Soft cover, 240 x 168 mm, 192 pages
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