James Dearsley’s wife thought he had lost his mind when he announced his intention to become a beekeeper. Like many interested in self-sufficiency, he loved gardening and growing vegetables and he wanted to teach his little boy where honey came from, so he set himself a goal: to get, in a year’s time, just one jar of honey.

How the lives of wild honey bees offer vital lessons for saving the world’s managed bee colonies Humans have kept honey bees in hives for millennia, yet only in recent decades have biologists begun to investigate how these industrious insects live in the wild. The Lives of Bees is Thomas Seeley’s captivating story of what scientists are learning about the behavior, social life, and survival strategies of honey bees living outside the beekeeper’s hive—and how wild honey bees may hold the key to reversing the alarming die-off of the planet’s managed honey bee populations. Seeley, a world authority on honey bees, sheds light on why wild honey bees are still thriving while those living in managed colonies are in crisis. Drawing on the latest science as well as insights from his own pioneering fieldwork, he describes in extraordinary detail how honey bees live in nature and shows how this differs significantly from their lives under the management of beekeepers. Seeley presents an entirely new approach to beekeeping—Darwinian Beekeeping—which enables honey bees to use the toolkit of survival skills their species has acquired over the past thirty million years, and to evolve solutions to the new challenges they face today. He shows beekeepers how to use the principles of natural selection to guide their practices, and he offers a new vision of how beekeeping can better align with the natural habits of honey bees. Engagingly written and deeply personal, The Lives of Bees reveals how we can become better custodians of honey bees and make use of their resources in ways that enrich their lives as well as our own.

A handbook for what to expect the first year of beekeeping and beyond.

key pollinators honey bees, have been evolved for million years along with flowering plants. Asia is rich with species diversity and the bees are known to play vital roles in maintaining the the local fauna and sustain the agricultural crops to secure food sources for human consumption in the region, where the population continue to grow. Southeast Asia is regarded as a hot spot for scientists to study ecological interaction and co-evolution between hosts and parasites 9n different species of honey bees. The most serious and widespread bee pathogens and parasites today in the European honey bee are parasitic mites. nosema, kashmir bee virus which may have originated from Asian honey bees in South East Asia, More information on Asian honey bee health can also reflect the future threat in European honey bee worldwide especially when the global warming and fast transportation allow the prevalence and dissemination of tropics pathogens and parasites. This book aims to provide the current bee health status of honey bees in Asia which are now under emerging pressures from natural causes and human activities in modern society of globalization. Symbiotic relationships between living organisms and honey bees are also described

Bees and Beekeeping in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) marks the first publication in the UAE of a book focusing on bees, honey bees, and beekeeping. Wild and managed bees are known as "keystone species" because of their significance as pollinators of flowering plants in nature and agriculture, but despite this, little is known about bees in the UAE. This book is designed to captivate a broad audience, blending general knowledge about the diversity, significance, and conservation of bees with specific insights into challenges unique to honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the UAE. Key topics include sustainable beekeeping practices, managing hives in hot, arid environments, and identifying and addressing major pests and diseases. Special attention is given to the wild dwarf honey bee (Apis florea), a prevalent species in the UAE. While not a basic guide to beekeeping, this book offers valuable information for both novice and experienced beekeepers.

This book summarizes the current progress of bee researchers investigating the status of honey bees and possible reasons for their decline, providing a basis for establishing management methods that maintain colony health. Integrating discussion of Colony Collapse Disorder, the chapters provide information on the new microsporidian Nosema ceranae pathogens, the current status of the parasitic bee mites, updates on bee viruses, and the effects these problems are having on our important bee pollinators. The text also presents methods for diagnosing diseases and includes color illustrations and tables.

A New York Times 2018 Holiday Gift Selection Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America’s native bees—an endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies—is just as crucial. Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Our Native Bees explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and agriculture. The people and stories are compelling: Paige Embry goes on a bee hunt with the world expert on the likely extinct Franklin’s bumble bee, raises blue orchard bees in her refrigerator, and learns about an organization that turns the out-of-play areas in golf courses into pollinator habitats. Our Native Bees is a fascinating, must-read for fans of natural history and science and anyone curious about bees.