Book Review: The Beginner's Guide to Beekeeping

Title: The Beginner's Guide to Beekeeping: Everything You Need to Know

Author: Samantha Johnson, Daniel Johnson

Year: 2013

ISBN: 1610587987 (ISBN13: 9781610587983)

GoodReads Reviews

My Score: 4/5

This book deserves a longer review than the one I am writing, but as someone who has been toying with the idea of urban/backyard beekeeping for a few years, I found this to book to be a delightful introduction to what promises to be an exciting and rewarding hobby. I am yet to buy any gear (or bees), so reading is my only vicarious outlet until next season by which time I hope to convince myself that I know enough to look after 'my girls' well enough.

I would recommend this book for readers in a similar situation, I have come away with a list of questions to pose to the beekeeping association in our region. I'll even be able to understand the answers given, based on the knowledge I have picked up over the pages of this book. While it may not be *everything* you need to know, it certainly covers all the major points of what you *should* know. 



Aside from the easy reading that seems to just flow from the pages, the photographs are simply stunning and make a massive contribution to the overall appeal of the book. For reference material, I certainly enjoyed the read, and was amused to see how the photos drew in both my wife and one of my sons to learn more about this thing I'm planning to get started with. 


I have reserved the final star solely because of some of the regionalisation in the text (being skewed to the American market). I do this to be fair to other reviews I have posted and, while completely understandable in terms of marketing and wanting to address the questions from their local readership, I would have appreciated a little hat-tip to readers from different countries in terms of more internationally relevant resources. Perhaps such an inclusion would be difficult to keep accurate and would quickly date the text, regardless - there is more than enough information and beautiful imagery to keep me coming back to this book again and again.