Bienen im Kopf – Vom Bienen-Hippie zum Erwerbsimker

Herne 2020, HC. 414 pages, numerous photos and drawings. This book represents an attempt to share the deep knowledge of Bernhard Heuvel, an apiarist who has started with a few colonies of bees in the garden to pollinate his fruit trees and who now runs a full-time beekeeping business. Heuvel was born in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein in 1979 and moved with his family to the Lower Rhine region at a very early age, where he grew up and constinues to live today. Bernhard was merely 10 years old when he created his own vegetable garden. Before he started with the bees, he was about 50% self-sufficient with chickens and other animals. Growing your own food and enjoying the fresh produce—that is Bernhard’s idea of ​​a good life. So it was only a matter of time to arrive at the bees. Because bees are part of a good life, too. The excitement and fascination associated with apiculture completely enchanted him. And today bees occupy his whole life. From morning to night, it’s (almost) all about bees. The learning curve was very steep when it went from hobby beekeeping to sideline—and above all from sideline to professional beekeeping. Subjects discussed in this book range from bee biology and Varroa parasitism, through the author’s own path from stable construction and swarm beekeeping as a hobby to becoming a professional apiarist using “Bruder Adam” Dadant beehives, to commercial two-queen operations and the making of creamed honey. In German.