This very densley written book presupposes a working knowledge of the basics of bee-keeping in the reader. As a complete novice looking for information to guide the purchase of a colony and management of their hive I did not find the help I was looking for here. For example, there is cursory reference to a number of bee species in the book. I am none the wiser as to the similarities or differences between these species and would not know which type of bee to search out for my personal requirements. At an even more basic level I would have appreciated some photos of the defining characteristics of workers, drones and the queen bee - much of the text is spent discussing the merits and means of excluding queens from portions of the hive; not easy if you don't even know who the queen is!
Related to this grumble is the book's slant towards the mass producer of honey. While Mr Morse attempts to discuss home production methods the bulk of the text is concerned with managing bee farms.
The text is also firmly grounded in North America, providing information about native nectar producing plants, bee diseases, climate variations and legislation across different states. I have no idea how relevant any of this is to beekeeping in Britain.
Essentially I trawled through this book with an ever-dwindling hope of equiping myself with sufficient knowledge to get started with a hive. I am about to go back through Amazon's catalogue and try again.
