Beekeeping is a great pastime, and more than that, it is a productive and potentially lucrative one… Bees are crucially important pollinators that can help out your own crops and garden, as well as those belonging to your neighbors. By taking care of them, you’ll be rewarded with lots and lots of golden, delicious honey.
If you’ve never kept bees before, the idea is probably thrilling and more than a little bit scary, but it doesn’t have to be!
If you are brand-new to keeping bees, or already a seasoned veteran with many hives and lots of years under your belt, you’ll want to have the following books on your reference shelf.
This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and buy, I may earn a commission. Read my disclosure policy.
The Beekeeper’s Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes, and Other Home Uses
By Richard A. Jones and Sharon Sweeney-Lynch
The Beekeeper’s Bible truly lives up to its name. Beautiful, entertaining, thorough, and at times almost poetic, it is as much an almanac as it is a practical manual to keep in hand when you’re getting started.
It covers every single element of keeping bees, from choosing different bee species to the advantages and disadvantages of different hive types, and even detailed instructions on making different goods from bee products, including furniture polish, candles, and more.
Beekeeping for Dummies
By Howland Blackiston
Famous the world over, the iconic, distinctive, and instantly recognizable “For Dummies” books might be a cliché in some literary circles, but that in no way diminishes their practical value.
One of the best, most comprehensive, and easiest-to-reference books on the subject, Beekeeping for Dummies covers everything that new or veteran keepers need to know when caring for their hives, including new and cutting-edge information discovered by science.
One of the best parts of the book is the comprehensive section covering specialty beekeeping products, bee-specific medications, and all-natural remedies for all sorts of bee ailments. But there’s that, and a whole lot more! It’s one of the most readable and useful books of its kind: get it!
Beekeeping for Beginners
By Michael York
If you ever daydreamed about building your own productive, teeming beehive of happy, healthy bees, this is the book you’ve got to read.
Author Michael York takes you through everything a beginning keeper should know, from choosing the right hive to actually installing your existing colony of bees, inspection, honey harvesting, and even turning your hive into a viable and profitable business.
It’s 300 pages and crammed from corner to corner with information; no wasted space, no fluff, and no-nonsense. Kind of like a beehive now that I think about it!
The Backyard Beekeeper, 5th Edition
By Kim Flottum
The fifth edition of The Backyard Beekeeper is packed with priceless insights by Master Beekeeper Kim Flottum. If you’re just getting started, you’ll learn the basics like setting up and caring for your own colonies, picking the right location, and caring for your bees without hurting them.
But advanced keepers will appreciate a comprehensive section covering all-natural beekeeping techniques, proper insulation methods for overwintering hives, and the latest and best procedures for dealing with the ever-destructive varroa mites. This book also contains tons of good photos for easy reference.
The Beekeeper’s Handbook, 5th Edition
By Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile
The Beekeeper’s Handbook is a true handbook, easy to read and reference for pressing questions when needed. If you are struggling to give your colony the care it needs, reach for this book and get your answer.
Hand-drawn diagrams add a touch of charm, but make no mistake: the wisdom and the included research are cutting-edge, and cover intricacies including the influence of environmental changes on the behaviors of different bee species in different habitats. It truly leaves no stone unturned!
Backyard Beekeeping: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your First Hive
By David and Sheri Burns
If you’ve got your heart set on getting started with a single backyard hive, this is the book that will take you by the hand and walk you through the process step by step.
You’ll start with picking out the right gear, learning about what bees are right for you, assembling your hive, and then installing your colony.
After that, you’ll learn how to plan and modify your outdoor space to keep your bees safe, productive, and happy. You’ll get expert guidance for making several important but personal decisions. including whether or not you should raise your bees all-natural or give them medication when needed.
Beekeeping for Beekeepers: Your Beginner-Friendly Guide to Beekeeping, from Basics to Beyond
By Don Brown
This book looks plain and innocuous compared to pretty much all the others on our list, but it’s a real sleeper, and it would be a shame for you to miss out on the masterful wisdom that can benefit your hive!
Author Don Brown seeks to empower readers by giving them fundamental knowledge about their bees, including their history of domestication and how bee society actually functions.
Using that knowledge, you’ll be able to make informed decisions concerning your own hive selection and setup, and guide your bees through challenging seasons, be it predators, illness, or something else.
Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual
By L.L. Langstroth
If this author’s name is ringing a bell, it should be: his surname graces one of the best hive designs of all time! More than that, Reverend L.L. Langstroth is considered the father of modern beekeeping, and for very good reason…
This manual, first published all the way back in 1853, is one of the best of its kind concerning beekeeping and bee management.
Even with all of our advances in science, this book is the work of a true master and covers every element of the practice that you might conceivably need to know, from physiology to diseases, predators to societal cycles.
Beekeeping Tracking Journal Inspection Notebook
By Paul R. Asbury
There’s a lot more logistics involved with beekeeping than you might think. Beekeeping, and specifically the day-to-day management of your hives, is as much about observation and scientific method as it is an art form.
There’s a lot of information to track, a lot to keep up with, and the need for documentation will only compound as your colonies start to split and you begin to care for multiple generations of bees.
This logbook will help you make sense of it all without resorting to a lot of mad scribbling in a common notebook.
Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, 2nd Edition
By Malcolm T. Sanford and Richard E. Bonney
Packed with full-color photographs, diagrams, and other informative graphics, if you are a visual learner or just looking for specific visual references for a problem or anomaly you are trying to figure out, this book will save the day.
As expected, it covers all of the basics from choosing your bees, planning a location, and installing your hive, but it will also tell you how to maximize productivity while minimizing stress on your bees.
Instructions and considerations for reducing and managing disease and pest infestations are likewise valuable.
Beekeeping: On Bees, Beekeeping and Bee Products
By Joachim Petterson
A practical and prosaic guide, this book tackles beekeeping from a thoroughly modern perspective, one where more and more beginning keepers are looking to set up a hive in the middle of suburbia or, surprisingly enough, smack in the middle of a major city.
It tackles the considerations for each in a logical way and then progresses through providing a starting garden for your bees, ongoing care, seasonal challenges, and so much more.
There are also detailed sections covering bee products; honey, of course, but also wax, propolis, and more.
Build Your Own Beekeeping Equipment: How to Construct 8- & 10-Frame Hives
By Tony Pisano
Like so many hobbies and other ventures, beekeeping involves a certain amount of investment. But so many new keepers suffer pronounced sticker shock when they go to buy hives and all of the other needed gear! It’s easy to spend a small fortune on even a small setup.
But not to worry. Most of what bees need, including a proper hive box, are actually quite simple in design.
If you are crafty and have a DIY spirit, this book will provide you everything you need in the form of plans, tips, and guidance for constructing all sorts of bee-centric equipment, including 8 and 10-frame hives, top bar and nuc hives, swarm catchers, and a whole lot more.
Raising Resilient Bees
By Eric and Joy McEwen
One of the most discouraging and depressing things that can happen to a beekeeper is to watch their hives fall victim to parasites, diseases, and other maladies.
Seemingly no matter how hard you try, your bees just get sicker and sicker until the colony collapses, and you’re left with silence where once there was the reassuring, happy hum of a thriving hive.
Don’t give in to the thought that there’s nothing you can do. There almost always is, and this book by Eric and Joy McEwen will show you.
From global pests to ancient diseases, resistance to modern medicines, and a lot more, this book tackles some of the most pressing modern-day challenges facing keepers.
Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture, 2nd Edition
By Ross Conrad and Gary Paul Nabhan
Many homesteaders try to live by organic principles in all things: food, water, and even cleaning supplies. Why not do the same with our bees?
This comprehensive manual from Ross Conrad covers beekeeping from the basics to the intermediate and advanced level.
You’ll learn all about bee biology, identifying and working with queens, controlling parasites and diseases, and managing genetics. And you’ll learn to do it all organically!
If you’ve struggled in the past to deal with mites, other parasites, and illnesses without resorting to chemicals and medications, you’ll find this book to be a literal lifesaver for your bees.
The Beekeeper’s Problem Solver: 100 Common Problems Explored and Explained
By James E. Tew
The internet holds many answers, but some of the more intricate and pressing problems will evade search engines unless you want to spend a lot of time digging through sources.
That’s where a troubleshooting book can come in handy, and especially for such an esoteric practice as keeping bees, having expert guidance on hand can turn a real head-scratcher into a minor aggravation.
The Beekeeper’s Problem Solver does exactly what it advertises, helping you diagnose, assess, and solve the 100 most common problems that you, as a beekeeper, will face.
From rainy day arrivals to bees that are turning up mysteriously dead, brooding nests that have been built across multiple boxes, or a lack of productivity in the queen, the answers you need are in this book.
It even deals with common equipment-related malfunctions like smokers that just won’t stay lit and honey filters that clog too quickly.
Beekeeping Log Book: Comprehensive Beekeeper’s Journal
By William B. Gardner
Another administrative and logistical aid for beekeepers, the beekeeping logbook includes inspection templates for keeping detailed records and notes on each of your hives…
Things like useful monthly planners, contact lists for suppliers, veterinarians, and fellow keepers you need to keep up with, a honey harvest tracker, design layout planner, and a whole lot more.
This is the perfect solution for managing one hive or multiple and is just as useful for greenhorn keepers as it is for the pros.
First Lessons in Beekeeping
By Camille Pierre Dadant
Everybody started somewhere, and if you don’t know one single thing about bees except that you want a hive of your own, you need to pick up this century-old book.
Highly informative but written in a way that will make sense and also appeal to casual readers who are uneducated concerning the fine art of beekeeping. nside you’ll learn all about how beehives function, how domestic bees are kept for success, honey production, overwintering, and tons of other practical information you can put to use at once.
If other sources on beekeeping just haven’t made sense, this is the tome you need to try.
QueenSpotting: Meet the Remarkable Queen Bee and Discover the Drama at the Heart of the Hive
By Hilary Kearney
Part field manual, part photography book, and part treatise on the importance of the queen bee in every hive, QueenSpotting is unlike any other beekeeping book on the market.
The author has captured gorgeous photos of queen bees in various states of repose, both swarming out in the wild and hanging out in the hive doing their job.
The book includes nearly 50 fold-out visual “puzzles” that are designed to train you in spotting the queen among her thronging attendants quickly and easily, a vital skill for all beekeepers.
Understanding the behavior, challenges, and life stages of queen bees is critical if you want to manage productive and healthy hives. No other book I know of focuses on queens in this way.
Keeping Bees with a Smile: Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping
By Fedor Lazutin and Leo Sharashkin
Another thoroughly practical guide to beekeeping, this manual consists of two distinct but complementary parts.
The first is a sort of onboarding lesson for novice keepers or for people who are interested in keeping bees themselves. The second is a set of procedures for keeping bees more naturally while interfering with their lives as little as possible.
Inside the book, you’ll learn how to build various low-maintenance hives that better replicate how bees would live in the wild: Feeding and sustaining bees without any drugs or processed sugar, helping colonies overwinter, and starting your own hive completely for free by attracting local bee swarms.
Urban Beekeeping – Managing Hives in City Environments
By Anthony Carter
So many would-be beekeepers give up on their dreams of owning hives of their own simply because they live in an urban environment.
Understandably, urban environments do provide challenges to beekeeping, not the least of which is safety, available space, and the difficulties such environments pose to bees. Even so, urban areas need bees too, and it’s possible for bees to thrive in the city.
If you’re willing to take up the challenge, you can succeed, but you’ve got to tailor your approach accordingly. This book from Anthony Carter, Urban Beekeeping, will tell you everything there is to know about managing hives in city environments specifically.
From situating a hive safely to talking with neighbors and other city dwellers about bee safety and more, this book will cover everything that you and your bees need to thrive in the urban jungle.
Get your gift and learn things like:
- how to make this really quick pest spray
- how to prevent egg waste
- two cheap automation devices that will make your life easier
Tom has lived and worked on farms and homesteads from the Carolinas to Kentucky and beyond. He is passionate about helping people prepare for tough times by embracing lifestyles of self-sufficiency.