The Basic Beekeeping and Advanced Beekeeping Manuals are now available for download. Please read the information below and then choose the appropriate manual to download. 

Pam Gregory has over 30 years beekeeping experience, and has worked as a professional bee health inspector in the UK.  Pam holds the UK National Diploma in Beekeeping, and also has an MSc in Overseas Rural Development.  Over the last fifteen years, she has used her wealth of expertise working with beekeepers in sub Saharan Africa.  In collaboration with Gay Marris of the UK National Bee Unit (www.nationalbeeunit.com), Pam has produced two illustrated Manuals specifically for use by field-based beekeepers in developing countries:  The Basic Beekeeping Manual and The Advanced Beekeeping Manual.  The Manuals offer ideas to help beekeepers to become independent by making their own equipment from local materials, and to get the most value from their honey bee products. To make sure that the content of these publications is accessible to as many people as possible, both Manuals are comprised of numerous colour photographs collected in real field situations and written text is kept a minimum.   

Beekeeping can improve people's lives in a multifaceted way.  Honey is a nourishing, high calorie, digestible and popular foodstuff and an effective medicine especially for wounds, skin conditions, burns and conjunctivitis.  Beekeeping offers people in rural areas of developing countries the opportunity to earn additional income from the sale of honey. Secondary hive products, such as beeswax and propolis, offer special opportunities for women to develop small businesses making candles, cosmetics and medicinal products.  Artisans such as carpenters, tailors and tin smiths also benefit by making essential beekeeping equipment.   Bee hives don't need much space and can be kept in places where the land may not be suitable for growing crops. If people learn to build their own hives from local materials the size of their business can grow as knowledge and skills develop. 

The Basic Manual is divided into nine short sections, covering The life of the bee, How to keep safe when beekeeping, How to make a simple bee veil, How to make a moveable comb top bar beehive, How to set up a good apiary, How to manage the bees, How to harvest quality honey, How to extract quality honey and How to harvest beeswax.  The Advanced Manual covers more advanced management techniques and problem solving and offers some ideas about how to tackle them. Chapters include A decision making tool for planning a new beekeeping intervention, Improving colonisation rates, Trees for bees, Things that can go wrong, How to make a bee suit, Adding value to honey bee products and an Appendix of honey, propolis and beeswax recipes. 

With generous sponsorship from the Waterloo Foundation (www.waterloofoundation.org.uk) the Manuals have been translated into the following languages: The Basic Manual is available in English, French, Shona, Kinyarwandan, Kiswahili, and Chichewa (Hausa and Yoruba in prep. 2011); The Advanced Manual is available in English (Shona and French in prep. 2011).   For the purposes of training, both Manuals can be downloaded for free by organisations and communities involved in apiculture development work, or by any individual who has an interest in setting-up or improving their own beekeeping project.  We are happy for them to be used in this way, by as many people as possible.  However, the Manuals remain copyright© of Pam Gregory and must not be reproduced for the purposes of resale.