Bees & Honey

The nineteenth River Cottage Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to setting up a hive, caring for healthy bees and harvesting their honey, as well as recipes for eating, soothing and healing

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Beekeeping is surprisingly easy; the bees are the ones that do all the hard work. In Bees & Honey, Rachel de Thample tells you everything you need to know about setting up a hive in both rural and urban locations, caring for happy and healthy bees and harvesting golden pots of honey for use in your kitchen.

This practical handbook will enable you to establish a colony of honeybees and understand exactly what is going on inside the hive. You’ll be guided through the bee’s year month-by-month, and be given instructions for sustainably harvesting the products of their hard work. And once you have retrieved your first pot of delicious honey, there are recipes for cakes and buns, sauces and marinades, and drinks and tonics, as well as some creative ideas for using the beeswax and propolis.

With an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and plenty of clear step-by-step practical information by resident River Cottage beekeeper Steve Minshall, this book will be the only one you ever need on the art of keeping bees.