Keeping Bees & Keeping Ducks

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Choosing & Keeping Chickens by Chris Graham. Well the publishers must have liked what I said, because they’ve sent me two more books to review. I’m happy to say I think they’re brilliant as well.

Keeping Bees: A Complete Practical Guide by Paul Peacock

Bees are immensely useful little creatures, producing honey, wax and even Royal Jelly. If you’ve ever thought about keeping bees, this is a really good book to get you started He starts with a brief but interesting history of beekeeping, quickly moving on to the anatomy of the bee and the beehive. Once these basics are under your belt you are ready to start and he covers your options, what you need and where to get things from in detail. Moving through caring for your bees we get into the really good stuff, Honey and other products. It just so happens I love honey, by the way. He concludes with some recipes, including Mead, something else I like.

Now I do believe that there is no substitute for first hand advice from a beekeeper and some experience but this excellent book will help you decide if beekeeping is for you and provides an invaluable reference for those problems that are bound to arise. It’s well illustrated with quality full colour photographs and diagrams but it’s not a ‘coffee table’ book.

Highly recommended. Keeping Bees: A Complete Practical Guide by Paul Peacock

Choosing & Keeping Ducks & Geese by Liz Wright

I doubt there is much about keeping ducks and geese that Liz Wright doesn’t know and her wonderful book covers every question the novice is likely to ask. She starts logically with what you actually need to keep ducks and moves through to care, problems and diseases, housing and so forth. If you thought you needed a large pond to keep ducks, think again. They do need access to some water for splashing around in, but you don’t actually need that much.

There are a few quality books on keeping ducks available, but where this one scores is that it covers the different breeds available along with good quality colour photographs. She’s broken them into sections so you can easily find what you are looking for.

• Call, Bantam and Miniature Breeds
• Light duck breeds
• Heavy duck breeds
• Light goose breeds
• Heavy goose breeds

Once again, I wholeheartedly recommend this book for anyone thinking of keeping ducks or geese. It’s brilliant. Choosing and Keeping Ducks and Geese