Keeping Bees with Ashley English

Lark Crafts (an imprint of Sterling Publishing) has added two more titles to there DIY (do it yourself) library this year: Keeping Bees and Home Dairy both by their resident DIY expert Ashley English. 

Like the first two books:  Keeping Chickens and Canning and Preserving, these books are wonderfully designed, chock full of information that walks you through everything you need to know from how to get started to becoming a skilled expert.

In each of the books there is a section where they profile regular people who do what the books describe: keep bees, chickens, can or make cheese.  I love it because it gives you real insight into how people make it work for them and how they got it together to buy all the stuff and get started.  These sections are truly inspirational: after you have all the knowledge about how to do something the key ingredient is the energy and inspiration to DIY and these books give it to you!

Of course my favorite thing about all the books are the recipes.   A nice practical touch to the end of each book. 

Bee keeping is not something you have to live in the country to do.  There are a lot of New Yorkers who keep bees. There is even, not surprisingly, a New York City Beekeepers Association (a great place to start if you live here and want to star Bee keeping).

For even more inspiration to you urban, bee keeping wannabees ;-)  here is a video of the naked Brooklyn Bee keepers with tips on how to care for your hive (thanks Chris for the heads up on this).

And finally this was highlighted at Grist.org - beautiful, meditative contemplation on bee keeping in Hong Kong.


Nokia - HK Honey from The Silentlights on Vimeo.