BLOG.JESSIEKEITH.COM: Best Books for Budding Beekeepers: Hive and the Honey-Bee

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In 1995, Jessie became a Master Gardener, accepted a job as a landscape designer and had a farmer's market booth selling garden flowers. The following year she attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana where she graduated with honors in 1999 with a BS in Public Horticulture. At Purdue, she worked for two years as garden intern at The Purdue University Horticulture Gardens and was mentored by Dr. Harrison Flint and Dr. Michael Dana. She also served as undergraduate teacher’s assistant in woody and herbaceous plant identification and introductory horticulture classes.

In 1999, she accepted a yearlong position as the curatorial intern at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA under the tutelage of celebrated curator and author, Dr. Tomasz Anisko. Graduate school at Michigan State University followed. There she studied systematic botany and completed her MS degree in the winter of 2003. Shortly after graduation, she accepted an internship at The American Gardener magazine, the journal of The American Horticultural Society, where she received guidance from editor-in-chief, David Ellis, and distinguished scientist and horticulturist, Dr. H. Marc Cathey.

Jessie taught horticulture for two years at Williamson Free School in Media, Pennsylvania before pursuing a career in garden writing and plant photography. She began to work as content editor for Learn2grow.com in 2007 and has written articles for publications such as The Old House Journal, The Green Scene, What’s Up! Annapolis? and The Herbarist. She most recently served as one-time horticultural editor for Wilder Quarterly.

Today, Jessie lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her husband Knut, daughters Franziska and Gabriella, two geriatric cats, and thousands of garden plants.

BLOG.JESSIEKEITH.COM: Best Books for Budding Beekeepers: Hive and the Honey-Bee

Best Books for Budding Beekeepers: Hive and the Honey-Bee

Beekeeping 351, taught by the ever-enthusiastic Dr. Fischang, was a magical college course. It opened up a world that I hope to enter one day; one where I have my own farmette along with enough land to allow for a few hives. (I keep my great-grandfather's old beehive smoker on hand in case I may need it one day.)

A key bit of information gleaned from the course, which covered both honeybee biology along with practical lessons for apiarists, addressed the best written works on beekeeping, most notably Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: A Bee Keeper's Manual. The seminal work was first published in 1853 and has gone through countless revisions. Anyone wishing to start their own apiary, however small, should begin with this technical but accessible tome.

The "Hive and the Honey-Bee" holds even greater meaning for bee book enthusiasts. It is also the name of a massive beekeeping library founded in 1925 at Cornell University by apiculture professor, Everett F. Phillip. Since 2002 library staff and collaborators worked to digitize most of the collection and in 2004 The Hive and the Honeybee site was launched. The site has a searchable database filled with digitized beekeeping books available to all! Those responsible for this impressive effort include the Mann Library at Cornell University staff along with collaborating staff from the University of Delaware, Mississippi State University, Mary Washington College, the Finger Lakes Beekeeping Association.

For the time being my urban dwelling keeps my beekeeping dreams on hold. (Visits to the small apiary at our community garden help tide me over.) But one day that may change. It's exciting to know the best books on beekeeping are readily available for the reading, just when I might need them.