How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America

A fascinating and educational read about the beekeeping industry in America. With bits of humor interspersed throughout, this book details the history of bees, beekeeping, and the myriad hurdles that face both the bees themselves as well as the people who care for them. Thank you for the illuminating journey.

A fascinating book about Beekeeper's and their problems which range from Colony Collapse Disorder, to hivenapping to honey laundering. I don't believe that any of us truly realize how vital bees are to our food chain.

Well told without using 20-syllable words to get her points across.

The Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus is a chronicling of John Miller, a third generation beekeeper. At first look, you would think this story is going to be all about bees and their life cycle, production cycle, reproduction cycle, colony structure, etc. In fact, what you get is more romanticized than scientific, but I did come away with more knowledge about bees and beekeepers than before. All of this is delivered in such a way that the author keeps you captivated, interested, and vested in John Miller's story. It is even more story-telling than it is a natural history scientific writing.

Right off the bat, the reader really takes a look into the complications and complexities of what it means to be a beekeeper. Not only are they constantly on the move, following weather and therefore migration patterns, but the beekeepers also have to be prepared for anything. The way Nordhaus presents the problems a beekeeper has to face via Miller's experience is eye opening. There is everything from traffic accidents to the diminishing of bees due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or PPM as Miller calls it (Piss-Poor Managing). The author does a good job of bringing us into the world of Miller, not only by diving into his profession but also by delving in his family life, background as a mormon who swears and drinks, mid life crisis where he buys a corvette, and other quirks and factoids about the beekeeper that Miller says is vital to what keeps him in the business.

Although the book did call to what the media has been circulating about the fast-coming demise of all bees with its explanation of the ravenous CCD, it surprisingly reinforces the industrialized upkeep of colonies and bee numbers in general. One of the more interesting facts that the book present is the partnership between almonds and bees and their respective owners. Almond owners pay beekeepers to help their crops grow as the bees are key pollinators for the almonds and the almond pollen is a perfect pollen for the bee to use as well. This sort of symbiosis is enough to make any biologist (as well as capitalist) smile.

There were also vivid descriptions of colony structure for the bees, how every bee was a cog in the well oiled machine that is a hive, taking on an altruistic role and sacrificing the self for the good of the population. This sort of biological information was again artfully presented by Nordhaus, who presented not only the relationships brought about from different industries and within the colony, but also uncovered the darker side of the story with the bee deaths, driving accidents, and even the bee thievery that happens in the beekeeping world.

In the end, I greatly appreciated the presentation and style of this book. I felt that Nordhaus did an excellent job of keeping me interested by feeding me knowledge as sweet as honey and personalized hi-jinks that allowed me to picture, relate, and imagine life as a beekeeper. I definitely recommend this read.

The Beekeeper's Lament takes you inside a world you didn't think you cared about. By the end of the book, beekeeping is revealed as a fascinatingly heroic and indispensable profession, or perhaps a calling, given how little money many of them make. The story is filled with engaging details and the book's central character brims with charisma and wit. The author also paints a much more nuanced picture of the trouble bees are encountering these days and suggests that colony collapse disorder has a lot to do with the inherent fragility of bee colonies and the enormous burdens we now place on these critical inserts in the performance of agricultural duties. A fun, eye-opening read.

Few writers can meld good story telling with so much science. My hat goes off the both the author and Dave Miller for their collaboration to save the bees. This is a must read for everyone. If you eat, you must read this book!

the Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus brings together all the elements we have been seeing and not reacting to!
I was taught beekeeping as a child and her book re-awakened my desire to use this knowledge,become a woman beekeeper and teach my children.Her book is essential,well-written,full of historical anecdotes,facts and all kinds of info and you will become attached to John Miller and bees!Why can't we all be more flexible and have a hive or 2?Worth reading and should be in all school libraries and part of school curriculum!Thanks Hannah!

No, Ms Umpleby, as a beekeeper not dosing my bees with acaricides, this is NOT good information--as you put it. The information is a paean to industrial practices of beekeeping relying on extremely inbred lines of sick bees dependent on chemicals to thwart pests and disease. What this book fails to mention is---millions of beeks worldwide are using survivor stock bees that have adapted to the pressures of varroa without coddling from humans. Darwinian principles of evolution have served Apis mellifera for 70 million years of evolution, yet humans arrogantly think they can go around these adaptive processes and even OWN "the answer" Always looking for a angle, that is what much of the research and scientific community is focusing on---how to own genetically selected bees. The gullible public reads a "poetic" narrative and is no wiser about the underlying issues---most of the folks reviewing this book have NO experience with keeping bees or any understanding of their social structure or biology. That DOES matter--it is not, as you put it, some "social opinion"

Nordhaus has written a fascinating and insightful profile of a beekeeper who is every bit as interesting as the bees he keeps. John Miller is an American original - just as tenacious and sometimes as cockeyed as the oft-addled bees, both at home in his world and yet constantly surprised by it. Through him - and her own solid reporting - Nordhaus offers fresh, undogmatic takes on the slippery life and sometimes confounding death of bees. Nordhaus makes a great yin to Miller's yang. TBL is a pleasure to read.

I am reading this book and enjoy it immensely. It is well written. It explains the history of bee keeping from mid 1850 to present. It is interesting what is going on in California Central Valley with all the agriculture changes, bee hive thefts and etc.

I personally enjoyed this book The Beekeeper's Lament. It shows how one man can feed a country with a half a million of bees. The Beekeeper's Lament was very interesting since I came in reading this book with absolutely no knowledge of beekeeping. I definitely was one to not think much of bees in the beginning. I didn't realize what a large impact these bees have on the agriculture. This book is not long and there are no confusing terms. Its reading is nothing really like a textbook but it mostly is for leisure reading. It is not a long book and I had interest in reading the book after reading the first chapter of the book. Nordhaus does a nice job explaining John Miller's life as a beekeeper.

As a hobbyist beekeeper I appreciated both the information and the story. The book is well written and told in a fashion that draws you in without losing you in the detail. A good book makes you stop and think, this book does that.

Great read for anyone interested in beekeeping and the wellbeing of our planet! An especially good read for commercial beekeepers, backyard beekeepers, anyone in the agricultural field...to keep it simple - anyone that is concerned with the future of our known world ;)

This book is such a disappointment. If you followed Mr Miller and how he treats his bees you would have a better Idea of Him and the authors real intention. Which is to blame the demise of the bee onto the varroa mite instead of today's conventional beekeeping methods.This is another book by a human who dose not understand bees. It is just literary vomit

In the documentary "More Than Honey" the Miller operation is shown in its "true glory" and one can see that our honeybees are dying because of greed, arrogance and mismanagement of what is one of the gifts of nature to humanity. I have decided to not use almond products that incorporate the use of commercial "beekeeping" and to instead support the real bee keepers that do not disrupt the delicate balance that honeybees require to thrive. I can only hope that when he has killed all his bees by the practices he himself knows are wrong and clearly states in the film "my grandfather would be disturbed by this operation", Mr. Miller will close his doors and instead put his energy into helping the honeybee population by donating some of his ill gotten funds to creating a system of almond pollination that does not rape the bees.

This is a well written book. John Miller, the main character in the book, is a worthwhile eccentric to write about (beekeeper, Wall Street Journal reader, marathon runner, spreadsheet fanatic, sports car and speed enthusiast, etc...). Yet, I have much reservation regarding the main theme of this book. The author gives you a sense that bee colonies have been decimated since 2005. In that same year, supposedly 33% of the nation's hives collapsed. The author indicates that bees appear on a permanent decline and that our food crops are critically vulnerable to their progressive disappearance. The author mentions that if not for the bees our harvest would be 25% lower.

The idea that the formidable US crop basket would be so vulnerable to bees that are in turn decimated by a mysterious disease, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is enough to induce panic. Fortunately, a few hours researching the data at the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) quickly dispels this Cassandra theme.

The decline in bees is far slower than the book entails. Per NASS data, since 1986 the number of bee colonies has decreased by less than 18%. That's less than 1% per year. Additionally, the bee colonies are experiencing a robust resurgence in both 2009 and 2010. Based on current trends, bee colonies may well fully recover and reach their 1986 level again in the near future. In 2005, granted a bad year (the CCD scare) bee colonies shrank by only 5.6%. That's a lot less than the 33% the author states. For all the hype about CCD, a review of the data suggests that downturns in bee colonies appear to be cyclical. At the national level, the downturn in 2004 through 2006 pales compared to the more pronounced and lengthy downturn of 1991 to 1996. Also, any small percentage annual decrease in bee colonies is frequent given that every winter losses are severe.

The link between bees and food crops is not as deterministic as the author advances. Here I focused on California where John Miller, the main character within the book, spends half the year. This is also the region that has numerous crops that are supposedly the most dependent on bee pollination. The main one is almond. Many say that if not for bees California would not produce any almonds. After reviewing the NASS data, this is hard to believe. Looking at California almond production since the year 2000; it has a reasonably strong negative correlation and regression coefficient vs the number of California bee colonies (using honey production as the independent variable produces the same result). In other words, the data strongly contradicts the author's narrative. I understand that correlation does not mean causation. But, if California almond production is truly dependent on bee pollination alone (unlikely) then the data would indicate California has far more bee colonies than it needs to produce almonds. I studied other California crops supposedly dependent on bee pollination (strawberry and raspberry). And, the findings were directionally identical vs almond. In other words, since 2000 California the production of almonds, strawberry, and raspberry has trended strongly upward meanwhile the number of bee colonies have slowly declined over the same period.

I encourage anyone to study the insightful NASS data to give this book a much needed reality check.

Watch the documentary -more about honey - and you'll see this miller guy is anything but a hero.
He kills more bees than he keeps and pumps them full of antibiotics. It's a very sad state of affairs indeed.

A really pleasant folky, ride along story. The kinda story that then gives you the appreciation of the complexity of beekeeping and honey, and I was already able.to dazzle at the coffee station with the wondrous facts of honey!

Nordhaus makes the life of a beekeeper and the history of it, incredibly engaging, even to those of us with little to no knowledge about bees. Her colorful prose, even more colorful characters and compelling anecdotes make this a fast and surprisingly fun read.