Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper

One woman's charming and personal account of abandoning the rat race to live blissfully as a beekeeper and honey entrepreneur—plus everything you'd ever want to know about bees.

Ten years ago, Marina Marchese fell in love with bees during a tour of a neighbor's honeybee hives. Surprised to find that allowing docile honeybees to crawl across her hands instilled a serene tranquility and comfort, Marina quit her job, acquired her own bees, built her own hives, harvested honey, earned a certificate in apitherapy, studied wine tasting in order to transfer those skills to honey tasting, and eventually opened her own business. Today, Red Bee Honey sells artisanal honey and honey-related products to shops and restaurants all over the country.

Honeybee is not only a warm and inspiring story of one woman's intimate experience with honeybees (arguably the most industrious creatures on earth) but it is also bursting with fascinating and practical information about all aspects of bees, beekeeping, and honey, including life inside the beehive and the role of the queen, drones, and workers; how bees make honey; pollination and its importance in sustaining life; building a beehive; hiving and keeping honeybees; harvesting honey and comb; healing with honey and the practice of apitherapy; and much, much more. Recipes for food, drink, and personal care products are included throughout. Also included is a detailed appendix of 75 different varieties of honey.