From A to Bee: My First Year as a Beginner Beekeeper

by James Dearsley

Taken from his popular blog, the Surrey Beekeeper, James Dearsley presents the first personal, accessible account of the experience of learning how to harvest bees

Beekeeping . . . oh my . . . what have I done? I am 30 years old, I have been married for three years and am a new father to a fantastic little boy. Surely there are things that I should be doing at this age which do not involve little yellow and black insects that can hurt you if you are remotely clumsy (which at 6ft 5, I have an amazing ability to be).

James Dearsley's wife thought he had lost his mind when he announced his intention to become a beekeeper. But like many interested in the self-sufficient lifestyle, he loved gardening and growing vegetables in his garden and the old romantic in him had idealistic notions of teaching his little boy where honey came from, so he set himself what seemed a reasonable goal: to get, in a year's time, just one jar of honey.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening

289 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2012

About the author

James Dearsley, the Surrey Beekeeper,started The Beginner Beekeepers page on Facebook, one of the largest online communities of beekeepers (www.facebook.com/beginnerbeekeepers), and is on Twitter (@surreybeekeeper). His site www.surreybeekeeper.co.uk started as a blog, so others could learn from his mistakes, and expanded into a shop and general online resource for beekeepers.

He has written for a variety of publications around the world including Mother Earth News in the US, Grow Your Own Magazine in the UK The Ecologist and has recorded a DVD,Beekeeping for Beginners, with Charlie Dimmock, which is now on general release. He lives with his wife and two sons in Surrey.

Should you want to contact me directly please feel free to do so james@surreybeekeeper.co.uk

Reviews

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trigger warnings: animal death. I think that's about it??

This was a lovely book. Like, honestly, that's the only way to describe it. It was calm and peaceful and pure and just lovely.

It's essentially James' diary over the year or so that he got interested in beekeeping and follows him preparing to have his own bees and then dealing with the realities of the situation. In between, he travels for work and spends time with his wife and young son. And it was just so NICE.

I had no idea that beekeeping was so complicated, so it was definitely more educational than I anticipated it being. It's kind of like an episode of Midsomer Murders if you took out the murder and just left the interactions between all the slightly quirky characters in a small English village. And added bees. Delightful.

[Cameron Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good insight to bee keeping. James seemed quite impatient and unprepared a lot of the time which I found quite annoying.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From A to Bee is an interesting non-fiction adventure of James Dearsley, a novice beekeeper from the U.K. in search of a jar of honey in his first year. I read this book because a friend keeps bees and I wanted an insider's viewpoint on the practice. I learned a lot about bee keeping. I also spent time worrying that Dearsley wouldn't meet his goal or would die from bee stings because he didn't plan far enough in advance. (He has a family and works full time so not planning makes sense but it still made me worry!). This quick read was a lot of fun and I recommend it to bee newbies.

[Jacqueline Carthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done to Jame Dearsley for such a frank and amusing insight into his first year as a beginner bee keeper !

I'm sure many of us have had those flashes of inspiration, that drive us onto embarking on a journey that we are ill prepared for when it comes to taking up a new hobby, and this is exactly that.

With its research, pitfalls, and frustrations, this tale takes us through all the stages of learning that James goes through, and you can't help but feel all the emotions with him.

It is a fabulous read, well written and honest in its approach, and I loved the diary layout.

[Elisabijtje · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be complete honest, I don't think James Dearsley is a very good author. This book reads more like a blog (I wonder if they just copy-pasted his blog into book format?). I enjoyed his witty comments and funny anecdotes, but man was I disturbed by the constant mention of that one jar of honey he was or was not to harvest. Thanks though for all the information about beekeeping! Very useful indeed. :)

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I couldn't garner enough enthusiasm to finish the book - I made it about 3/4 of the way and only then through a sense of duty as my mother in law had withdrawn it from the library for me, as a novice beekeeper myself.
It is highly simplistic and quite thin as engaging reads go, also irritatingly repetitive.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a charming year in the life. Really feed my quiet longings of a peaceful country life with a large rambling garden, a flower covered cottage, and happy little bees bumbling about. I did learn many new things about bee keeping, but often found myself skipping the long technical bits to get to the crux of the matter. Was there to be honey at the end of the year?

[Christine Wallbom · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was a delight :)

[K.J. Dell'Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute, fun and entertaining, even educational, not that I'm going to keep bees. Jess might.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A middling sort of book.
This book is really only worth reading if you are interested in beekeeping, and even then there are probably better books out there, but this is the one I stumbled upon at the thrift store.

The writing isn't particularly great, James isn't particularly likeable, but there is more information about beekeeping from a novice POV than I've seen elsewhere and written in diary format in real time, so it was nice to kind of get an idea of what it entails from someone who was learning as they went along.
I've thought about eventually keeping bees, so this was a good primer on the responsibilities involved.

It was wild, though, how many times Dearsley mentioned "I should make a list of things I need" only to be hit yet again with a situation in which he was woefully unprepared. I get that that is part of learning, but it seemed pretty wild to have it happen so often.
The complete focus on getting "one jar of honey" out of these bees was also a bit tiresome. He started late in the season and was just learning, so it seemed like a very aspirational goal.
Spoiler alert: he made it there, but kind of cut some corners on how he got there (and also transported his hive to a heather patch 45 minutes away, which seemed kind of insane).

Three stars for the information included in the book, but if you don't have any interest in bees, I can't say I'd recommend it.
--

ATY 2021: #3 - A book related to the lyrics for the song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music

[Leonardo Etcheto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book. The diary like format makes for a very immediate and personal narrative. The author sounds like a great guy with a great attitude. I would love to have a chance to sit down in a pub, drink a pint with him and just shoot the breeze. His beekeeping travails are inspiring because he does make it sound very accessible and rewarding. I like his open attitude where he is willing to try different things to see what works and is not afraid to ask and more importantly listen. Great book, I will start to follow his blog as well.
I recommend this if anyone is thinking about beekeping at all, the book will make you go - yeah I can do that!

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some reviewers have clearly found this to be an amusing and endearing tale but I felt that this was an increasingly irritating account of a guy trying to juggle his work/life balance rather unsuccessfully over the course of a year. The author has clearly charged into beekeeping with bounding enthusiasm but little thought and a lack of patience. I ended up feeling rather sorry for his partner; pregnant and with a toddler and also his bees as he clearly didn't have the time to devote to both adequately! This overshadowed the whole tale for me.

[bibliotekker Holman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great listen in audio. Almost anything sounds better with a British accent that is talking about dodgy, buggered lorries and such (he doesn't say this). The author writes with a humorous style that is accented by the audio. If you want to learn about bees and have a few laughs this is a great book.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

about a novice bee keeper in southern england. a bit irritating in his naivete, but eventually he gets his hives, finds good places to put them, and harvests some honey. funny, and informative, but a bit thin.



*Been busy building an opac, so just making placeholders for books I’ve read in march and april 2014. This is the opac though.
http://stwr.ent.sirsi.net/client/defa...

[Alexandra Chauran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written by a charming Brit and is basically his diary of his lead up into beekeeping and his first season keeping bees and harvesting honey. This book would be enjoyable even for people not obsessed with beekeeping, but it's a perfect inspirational read if you're wanting to get started with beekeeping but have to wait through the winter first.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read about becoming a beekeeper. James sets a goal to get a jar of honey by year's end - little does he realize how the goal will change him. This book reminds me a little of the James Herriot series about a country veterinarian. Also, I learned a couple of things: what is a "Morris dancer"? And who is "Capability Brown"?

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last summer I had a bee in my bonnet about starting a beehive. I got over it... but ... well the dream is not entirely dead. So it was a lot of fun to read this engaging book about newbie Dearsley starting to keep bees.

See: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, and Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by S. Smith,

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a cute memoir. I was hoping for a little more specific information about beekeeping, but there were a few useful tidbits thrown in over the course of the narrative, and the resource list at the back was very thorough. I'd recommend it to people interested in bees.

[T Crockett · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who enjoys reading blogs, it was fun to hold one in my hands and let it unfurl at my pace. The author is wonderful about sharing his goofs and triumphs. I had no idea before reading the book just how involved beekeeping is. I learned quite a bit and enjoyed doing so.

[Jennifer Baldy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am starting beekeeping, and therefore found the journal of a beginning beekeeper very interesting. I didn't relate well to the personality of the writer, and probably would not have continued reading if there was any less focus on bees, but there was enough substance to be useful to me.

[Bob Mcinnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Dearsley story telling and diary reading. It made me long for next spring.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

We are getting our own bees in a little over a week, so I was excited to read this book about James Dearsley's first year beekeeping. While it was somewhat interesting and helpful, this is what I call a bumbling memoir - you write about how you bumble through something in your life and it's supposed to be funny and self-deprecating. But, there is a fine line between bumbling through and really doing dumb things with bad results. While James isn't on the dumb side of that line, I didn't love the book. It seemed like he did a lot of dumb things that could have turned out really badly - like moving a full hive by himself to another location just because he REALLY wanted to get a jar of honey his first year. But, there were other aspects that I did appreciate like his honesty about being kind of scared to check his hives each week, etc. Overall, it was OK, but not one I would really recommend. I did really like that he gave a LOT of beekeeping resources at the end.