Queen Rearing Essentials

by Lawrence John Connor, Randy Kim (Editor), Robert Muir (Editor)

At the request of readers and instructors, Dr. Connor has added sixty more pages of techniques and queen management ideas. He has expanded the concept of the queenless builder colony for use by those beekeepers who want to graft more frequently. This book will help you if you only need a few queens a year, or if you want to produce hundreds or thousands. The concepts are basic, the photographs "astounding", and the book comes "Highly Recommended" by reviewers. If you save the cost of one queen, you have paid for the book and learned a great deal about bees and queens.

346 pages, Paperback

Published February 18, 2015

Reviews

[minz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent book, short (less than 100 pages about ½ are pictures) you can read it in the amount of time that it takes to read a magazine. He gives one method, explains it well, and adds lots of pictures. He refers to his other books for other aspects of queen rearing. The author then gives a case study of large queen breeder that uses an entirely different method than discussed in the book.
Photo’s were given of grafting but without a video the method should at least be explained via an illustration of the steps.
Tools for grafting were discussed in general with the phrase that ‘you could make your own with…’ but without any instructions, shapes or pointers.
I think in the age of the internet I was expecting a deeper dive into the details of queen rearing. Pictures and a short explanation of the steps is a short video, not book worthy.
Would I recommend this to somebody who has not grafted before? No.
Would I recommend this to somebody doing back yard queen rearing? No.
I love Mr. Connors work and found this to be a disappointment. Had to give it 2 stars for OK.

[Cynthia Holt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read. Some good info