The Rooftop Beekeeper: A Scrappy Guide to Keeping Urban Honeybees

by Megan Paska, Rachel Wharton (With), Alex Brown (Photographer), Masako Kubo (Illustrator)

Overview

The number of urban beekeepers has escalated with more than 25 percent increases year over year in the United States and the United Kingdom. From a go-to authority on beekeeping and backyard farming, The Rooftop Beekeeper is the first handbook to explore the ease and charm of keeping bees in an urban environment. This useful manual— at once a good read and a pretty object—features a relatable first-person narrative, checklists, numbered how-tos, beautiful illustrations and 75 color photographs. Covering all aspects of urban beekeeping, this book also provides readers with plenty of sweet recipes for delicious treats, tonics, and beauty products to make with home-harvested honey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452130385
Publisher:	Chronicle Books LLC
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	382,797
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Megan Paska is a New York City–based apiarist, blogger, and founder of Hayseed's Big City Farm Supply.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/01/2014
As beekeeping grows in popularity among homesteading hobbyists, books such as this one by apiarist and blogger Paska will help people from urban areas discover the ins and outs of the process. Once a pioneer urban beekeeper in New York City, the author encapsulates her extensive experience and knowledge in personable prose. Highlighting all the basics of beekeeping for beginners, she cautions readers ("I still get stung") that there is no way to master it perfectly. Numerous color photos and illustrations bring lightness to a book that thoroughly covers the heavier topics of bee biology, equipment, hive management, and honey extraction. The informative volume is capped by a chapter of recipes, giving readers ideas for how to use the sweet rewards. VERDICT Paska offers a fresh voice to the art of beekeeping and shows that even people who cannot see a field of flowers from their window can benefit from this hobby.—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., South Deerfield

Library Journal

01/20/2014
In this information-rich and handsomely designed introduction to beekeeping, enlivened by Masako Kubo’s delightful illustrations, Paska draws on her years of Brooklyn beekeeping and teaching to encourage and instruct adventurous city-dwellers on keeping bees in highly populated places. She covers both science and practicalities, beginning with arguments for keeping bees—especially in the city—and the story of her own journey from childhood bee-phobe to avid gardener to intrepid rooftop apiarist. She describes bee anatomy, hive society, and plant sexuality; details essentials such as hive placement, keeping it “queenright” and heading off threats of swarm; offers culinary and cosmetic recipes for honey and beeswax; and, perhaps most importantly, advises how to find local beekeeper mentors and associates and maintain good relations with neighboring humans. Locavores and city gardeners, urbanites with urges to re-connect with nature, and young natural scientists will appreciate this accessible but comprehensive guide. Although the book focuses on urban beekeeping, suburban, rural, and small-town aspiring and novice beekeepers should find it useful as well. (Feb. 25)

Publishers Weekly

"Blogger, beekeeper, urban farmer, educator and business owner, Megan Paska is a modern-day polymath." - from Wilder Quarterly

From the Publisher