Introduction Chapter 1: Growing Your Operation: How Big Do You Want to Get? Trading Time for Money Buy Preassembled Frames Planning Ahead Saves Time and Money (But You Knew That) Use It Up, Wear It Out Business Goals and Bigger Pictures: 1. Where Are You Now? 2. Where Do You Want to Be? 3. How Will You Get There? Buying Equipment Standardization and Value The Mercy Buy Places to Put More Bees Breakthrough: Lease Land for Beeyards Expanding Your Honey House New Ways to Expand More Better Honey Chapter 2: A New Look at Honey Production, or if Muhammad Won't Come to the Mountain. What It Once Was and Why It Changed How Beekeeping Changed More Change: Honey Money A Price to Be Paid Non-Agricultural Areas Expanding Natural Bloom Early Nectar Crops, Then Farm Crops Migratory Beekeeping for Nectar Crops Planning a Honey Crop Types of Honey Crops Planting Perennial Shrubs and Bushes Long-Term, Permanent Plantings Growing Your Own, with Help Other Cost Considerations How Much Land Is Required? Working with Landowners with Lots of Land Costs per Acre More Land: Bigger, Better, More Complicated Recommended Plantings for Honey Bees Shrubs and Bushes Cover Crops Wildflowers Permanent Plantings This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land Types of Contracts Chapter 3: Royalty: Finding the Best Queen There Is Royal Lineage The Queens We Can Get What Do You Want from Your Bees? Know What You Want Hybrids Survivor Queens What Kind of Beekeeper Are You? What Kind of Beekeeper Are You, Really? Buying Queens Mated Production Queens Uncapped Queen Cells Getting Queen Cells Acquiring Virgin Queens Raising Your Own Queens Getting Breeder Queens Raising Production Queens Random Queen Production The Starter/Finisher: The King of Queen-Rearing Techniques The Cloake Board Method Background Check for Drone Colonies Chapter 4: The Working Class or the Bees that Beekeepers Keep Preventing Springtime Swarming Before Spring Arrives Early-Season Feeding Opening and Repacking the Colony After Feeding Reducing Congestion in the Brood Nest Equalizing Colonies, Discarding Dinks Reversing Making Spring Splits Making Summer Splits All About Honey Production Measuring Growth Preventing a Welfare Bee Population Pests and Other Problems Rallying Cry: Varroa Mite Resistance or Death Signs of Hope Trapping, Avoidance, and IPM Chemicals The Rest of the Lot Controlling Nosema Chapter 5: Wintering Your Bees, or Baby, it's Cold Outside Winter Rules Unnatural Habits From the Past Take Care of the Bees The Natural Question The New Nosema The Golden Rule How Much Honey? Too Cold Too Long Protection When It's Really Cold Planning Your Wrap Pollen Common Sense and Practical Facts Summary Glossary Resources Suppliers Index Photographer Credits About the Author Acknowledgments.