Overview

Keeping an observation hive year-round is an excellent means of learning how to improve your bees' health and productivity. This handbook, containing over 60 pages of helpful instruction, insightful anecdotes, and full-color photographs, has a wealth of information for the backyard beekeeper. Author and beekeeper, Frank Linton, has kept an observation hive in his home for over 10 years and during that time has acquired much knowledge-set down here for the reader in a well-thought out how-to book with many hard-earned insights. This book shows beekeepers everything they need to know to successfully select, install, and maintain a permanent observation hive. It also addresses the related topic of portable observation hives intended for temporary public display and education. This book is designed for beekeepers who want to know more about what goes on inside a beehive, without disturbing the bees. The activities of bees in their nests are mysteries that an observation hive exposes. If you want to see bees rearing brood and making honey, witness foragers departing, returning, and dancing, and note the effects of the seasons, the weather, and your beekeeping practices on the colony, then this is the book for you. If you want to see for yourself how a colony raises a new queen, how it deals with wax moths and small hive beetles, how a swarm acts as it prepares to depart, then get this book. You will quickly learn to distinguish between a colony that is healthy and productive and one that needs your attention. Owning an observation hive is the path to abundant bees and thriving hives. Embark on this enlightening journey today! Most importantly, this book illustrates the many ways you can use your observation hive to learn more about honey bees and how to care for them.

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9781511681094

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Dr. Frank Linton, EAS-certified Master Beekeeper, has kept an observation hive in his house since 2005. Frank weighs his observation hive daily, makes a weekly photo record of the hive's worker population, takes a weekly temperature-based census of the brood population, and tracks the quantity of feed consumed. What he enjoys most, however is just having a look at what the bees are doing in the observation hive, whenever he wishes, and for as long as he likes. Frank resides in northern Virginia and works for a company that operates federally funded research and development centers. He is an occasional speaker at local, state, and regional beekeeping meetings and a contributor to Bee Culture. He runs the websites http: //thebeepeeker.com, which is devoted to observation hives, and http: //colonymonitoring.com which is concerned with technology for monitoring honeybee colony health. Frank holds a B.A. and an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts, as well as an Ed.M. from Harvar

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