The Beekeeper's Lament...Review & Giveaway!

There is a new book out that should definitely make its' way onto your summer reading list...The Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus.  Here is the scoop on this new release from Harper Perennial...

The honey bee is a willing conscript, a working wonder, an unseen and crucial link in America's agricultural industry. But never before has its survival been so unclear—and the future of our food supply so acutely challenged.
Enter beekeeper John Miller, who trucks his hives around the country, bringing millions of bees to farmers otherwise bereft of natural pollinators. Even as the mysterious and deadly epidemic known as Colony Collapse Disorder devastates bee populations across the globe, Miller forges ahead with the determination and wry humor of a true homespun hero. The Beekeeper's Lament tells his story and that of his bees, making for a complex, moving, and unforgettable portrait of man in the new natural world. 

OK...as soon as I heard the title you KNOW I had to let my mother-in-law The Queen Bee have fist dibs on this one!  Here is what she thought...

If the honey bee disappears, half the items in your grocery store would, too.

With this fact in mind, I read The Bee Keepers Lament. Bee keeper John Miller is the main focus of Nordhaus' research but you meet many "bee guys" in the book. What I learned from reading this book was that putting honey on the market's shelf is not an easy task.  It is kind of like farming or commercial fishing (a subject I am very familiar with), it is a feast or famine life.

One very interesting fact of bee keeping these days is that the keeper will move his hives from home base (say Florida) and truck them to the almond farms in California to pollinate the trees. There are not enough honey bees in the wild to pollinate such huge farms. The almond industry is a massive market, world-wide, with most of the almonds coming from California farms. Farmers now make 150.00 & upwards for hives they used to get 6.00 for and after the pollinating is complete they truck the bees to their winter home to rest, which may be at a farm in North Dakota somewhere. Who would have thought?

The plight of the honey bee has been in the news of late, a phenom known as Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD has been devastating hives all over the world. Although it seems that this is a new disease, from what Nordhaus found, it may be ancient. Bees suffer from many diseases and parasites and it is not unheard of for a keeper to lose a quarter or third of his bees every year. This CCD is mysterious in that all the bees in the hive disappear, leaving a crazy queen and a few stragglers behind. The positive in all this is, if you can find one, would be that it brought the problems of the honey bee and it's keepers to the forefront and money is flowing in for research. Large sums of it from the very profitable almond farm owners! So the moral of this story is to buy local honey and keep the bee keepers in business.

I recommend this book to any & all lovers of honey..actually to anyone who likes fresh fruit, veggies and almonds, it is a real eye-opener !

Sounds interesting, doesn't it??  The Queen Bee certainly thought so!  You can pick up your copy today on Amazon...

Thanks to the publisher, Harper Perennial, one RBM reader will win a copy of The Beekeeper's Lament by Hannah Nordhaus!  Thanks so much to the sponsor.  Here is how to enter...

Mandatory Entry: In the spirit of the book's theme, leave a comment below telling me what you use honey for the most. In our home it is a staple for my secret crock pot ribs recipe!    You must complete this entry for all others to count.

For Extra Entries:

1.  Follow this blog= 1 entry

2.  Like Reviewed By Mom on Facebook =1 entry

3.  Enter one of my other giveaways & let me know you have done so = 1 entry per other giveaway entered.

4.  Follow Reviewed By Mom on Twitter = 1 entry

5.  Blog, Tweet or Facebook about this giveaway & let me know where to find it = 1 entry

6.  Follow Harper Perennial on Twitter= 1 entry

7.  Follow the guest reviewer, Queen Bee's blog=  3 entries

Please leave a separate comment for each entry and be sure to include your e-mail.  Contest is open to US  residents and will end on July 27th    The lucky winner will be announced by e-mail on July 28th and will have 48 hours to respond before another winner is chosen .  Good Luck!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.  The opinions in this post are entirely my own. Your experience may differ from mine. This post has not been reviewed or edited by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this review. The sponsor of this giveaway is responsible for prize fulfillment and shipping the winner(s) their prize.

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