A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988 - Nature - 193 pages
A New York Times Notable Book, Sue Hubbell's A Book of Bees is "a melodious mix of memoir, nature journal, and beekeeping manual" (Kirkus Reviews).



Weaving a vivid portrait of her own life and her bees' lives, Sue Hubbell lovingly describes the ins and outs of beekeeping on her small Missouri farm, where the end of one honey season is the start of the next. With three hundred hives, Hubbell stays busy year-round tending to the bees and harvesting their honey, a process that is as personally demanding as it is rewarding.



Exploring the progression of both the author and the hive through the seasons, this is "a book about bees to be sure, but it is also about other things: the important difference between loneliness and solitude; the seasonal rhythms inherent in rural living; the achievement of independence; the accommodating of oneself to nature" (Philadelphia Inquirer).



Beautifully written and full of exquisitely rendered details, it is a tribute to Hubbell's wild hilltop in the Ozarks and of the joys of living a complex life in a simple place.



Includes Photographs by Sam Potthoff.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Acknowledgments
THE BEEKEEPERS AUTUMN
1
THE BEEKEEPERS WINTER
35
THE BEEKEEPERS SPRING
61
THE BEEKEEPERS SUMMER
125
Afterword
175
Glossary
179
Index
183
Copyright

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About the author (1988)

Sue Hubbell was the author of eight books, including A Country Year and New York Times Notable Book A Book of Bees. She wrote for the New Yorker, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Smithsonian, and Time, and was a frequent contributor to the Hers" column of the New York Times."