Keeping Bees with a Smile: Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping

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.

Fedor Lazutin was one of Europe's leading natural beekeepers, the author of bestselling natural beekeeping guide Keeping Bees with a Smile. He founded a number of model apiaries southwest of Moscow, Russia, championed habitat restoration projects, and served as the first president of Russia's Ecovillage Union.

Leo Sharashkin, PhD, is a full-time natural beekeeper and founder of HorizontalHive.com He has edited numerous books on natural beekeeping, writes for major magazines, and speaks internationally on bee-friendly beekeeping. He holds a PhD in Forestry from the University of Missouri and a master's in Natural Resources from Indiana University. Sharashkin's forest apiaries are composed entirely of local wild honeybees housed in bee-friendly horizontal hives. He lives in the Ozarks of southern Missouri.