First published in 2010, Managing Alternative Pollinators was the first (and is possibly still the only), step-by-step, full-color guide for a completely different kind of beekeeping.

Not focused on honey bees, this is a guide to rearing and managing bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees, with additional notes on the rearing of other pollinator species for specialty crop production, such as the ground-nesting alkali bee, and the blue bottle fly.

Written by Northwest Meadowscapes’ Eric Lee-Mäder, University of Minnesota Professor Emeritus of Entomology Marla Spivak, and the University of Minnesota Bee Lab’s Elaine Evans, this book covers everything from:

• The natural history of bees
• The biology of pollination
• How-to guidance on raising these alternative bee species in various nesting systems (including nest construction)
• Managing alternative pollinators for crop pollination
• Identifying and controlling the parasites and diseases of non-honey bees
• Supplementing habitat for non-honey bee pollinators
• Reducing the effects of crop pesticides on bees

This is an uncommon kind of textbook, authored in the years just proceeding the arrival of Colony Collapse Disorder in the early 2000s, before “pollinator” became a household word. This is a template for an entirely different kind of beekeeping!

Full color, 160-pages.