Bees & Honey

The nineteenth River Cottage Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to setting up a hive, caring for healthy bees and harvesting their honey, as well as recipes for eating, soothing and healing

Bees are one of the strongest threads in nature’s complex web and if we don’t take care of them, things really will fall apart.

River Cottage Bees & Honey will guide you through a multitude of ways you can protect and attract our precious pollinators. Going beyond beekeeping, you’ll learn how to create a bee-friendly garden (or patio if you’re limited on space), ways to develop habitats if you don’t have space for a beehive, and why other species of bee are as important as honeybees, with a beautiful bee spotter’s guide that will inspire you look a more closely.

If you’re looking to set up a bee hive, this book will introduce you to different styles of hive and how manage them, with step-by-step instructions and a monthly beekeeping calendar. A tome with honey on the title, delicious detail about how to detect flower flavours in your honey is bound inside, as well as recipes that use this prized ingredient respectfully, treating it like gold where the flavour shines without needing lots of it. There are also creative ideas on how to use beeswax and propolis.

With an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, clear step-by-step practical information by resident River Cottage beekeeper Steve Minshall, and ideas on how to protect our winged friends and engage with bees if you don’t space or time for a hive, as well as some astonishing honey recipes, this is an incredible tome about bees that’s has something for everyone.