Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World

Song of Increase grabbed my heart right in the Introduction, which brought the Good kind of tears to my eyes. I love the way she has included Messages from the Bees, and her writing style is deeply engaging. This book resonates with my heart and soul, and if everyone read it, oh how all our lives would change for the better!

This is such an incredible book...and so needed right now, with the natural world facing seemingly endless threats. Bees are such a fundamental part of our environment and Jacqueline Freeman's sensitivity and ability to tell the story of her unique relationship with her hives makes this a truly compelling read. I was surprised to find myself welling up with tears right from the introduction...there is something extraordinarily moving about the way the author writes about her subject; so open and rich, and she takes you right inside the hum of the hives, and into the hearts of the bees.I am listening to this as an audibook, as I don't have as much time as I'd like to sit down and read, and I'm loving the narration. You don't often get to hear the voice of the author and Jacqueline Freeman's voice is friendly, warm, and full of lightness and humour. There is also another narrator who speaks from the perspective of the bees themselves, and the otherworldly character of her voice is just right in order to set the bees apart from the author's tone.I'll have to get the hard copy as well, however, as I know this is a book I need to have in it's original form. I would recommend "Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World" to everyone, and I believe everyone should read it; it will forever enrich your feelings towards not only the bees, but the natural world in general. A great read for people of all ages.

I loved the dialogue between human and bee. I love how connected Jacqueline is to her bees. What a wonderful role model for those of us who want to integrate love and cooperation into our apiaries. Thank you.

Not everyone is going to like this book, because it will certainly challenge you. (If you have kept bees for a long time, it will REALLY challenge you.) Mz Freeman takes a perspective and approach towards Honeybees that turns our cultural mindset towards animals and husbandry upside down. But if you are like me, the realization that conventional beekeeping is not sustainable and the search for a better way to steward the plants and animals entrusted to us will overcome any scruples or stepped-on-toes.To paraphrase Joel Salatin, this book looks intimately at "The Bee-ness of the Bee" and offers insights into how to enjoy not just Honey from your bees but a symbiotic relationship with the plant and honeybee world.This book is another encouragement to rephrase the question 'what can I get out of you?' towards our farms, plants and animals to 'how can we both benefit from this relationship so we both thrive?' It is a wonderful encouragement to ENJOY your honeybees, instead of having the panicked stress-filled mentality that fills so many honey-farmers involved in commercial beekeeping. I think it is an absolute MUST for any backyard beekeeper and definitely worth while for large-scale beekeepers open to adjusting their beekeeping styles for long-term rewards.

I really, really, REALLY wanted to love this book! &, for the most part, I am quite impressed with Ms. Freeman's observations & understanding of the science of bees. I greatly appreciate her bee-centric approach to beekeeping, she loves bees before she loves the products many beekeepers use them for. She has a grand sense of natural process & evolution. I, too, spend literally hours on a nice day, sitting with my bees & watching them. So I really appreciate the author's love & appreciation for these amazing natural beings!BUT, what I didn't like was the overly spiritual additions to the book. I don't want to judge someone's personal beliefs, & I think the author has a very special bond with bees. But her idea that the bees are literally speaking to her, using man-made words to describe things, was very hard to swallow. Every chapter, starts out wonderfully with a lot of insight & intelligent observations. She writes fluidly & has a lovely way with prose. I would be carried away with each chapters beginning, enjoying learning & the feeling that I have a cohort in the world in this author. But then the end of the each chapter contains a note "from the bees" - sometimes these notes are interesting & based in logic but often times I felt like I was being told a child's fairy tale. They seemed so disjointed from the remainder of the chapters, it became difficult for me to finish each chapter the further I got. I still did, but I felt sad each time since I do believe the book has so much to offer without the mystical storytelling.Bees are, on their own, are amazing, fascinating insects, I do not believe there is any need to embellish their spirits by giving them human language and/or feelings. I feel that reduces them from a near perfect super-organism system to the faulty world of us humans.I give the writer a huge amount of credit for writing this book, it is very unlike any other beekeeping book & I really appreciate the thought & time that went into these pages. She emphasizes the importance of bees & how they are vital to the whole ecosystem!

If you are a beekeeper or are thinking about it, this book is a must. Or even just if you love bees and want to learn more. We have so much to learn from the wonderful world of bees! I've been highlighting so many lines, that I ended up only drawing vertical lines next to the paragraphs I want to highlight. An explosion of wisdom!

I really enjoyed this book especially the song of story the bees tell! I am a very new beekeeper. I am learning so chard lessons by opening my hives too quickly, or too often. This book showed me how the bees live and function and what they need! I love the parts about their relationship with God and how they can be blessed by us as beekeepers and how they will and want to be a blessing to us. A good read for all but valuable lessons for the beekeeper. Lovely

Every beekeeping book I have read up to now, have all been very similiar, all stating tbe facts and methods of keeping bees, but none, except this one, dwelve past the outer workings of a hive, and into the bees holy and spirital realm of their interior.I fell in love with bees ever since a I saw the inner workings of a hive in a beesuit, at a public beekeeping centre. I left with that feeling common to every person touched by the bees and captivated by their beauty, a warm, calm, fuzzy feeling.Since then I have got my own hive, and have been mentored by an excellent natural beekeeper. I have opened hives many times since my first experience with a hive in a beesuit, but I never got that warm, fuzzy feeling aftereffect, in fact I often felt agitated, hot and bothered. I loved bees, and had my own hive now, who were extremely gentle, so why on earth was I feeling like this after every hive inspection? I knew I was missing something back then, now in hindsight maybe the bees were trying to tell me something. So I researched and researched, and that was when I found this book. There are books that occasionaly move past the, "that was nice, let's move on," effect and instead leave a lasting impression on you for life, completely changing you as a person. That was the effect of this book on me. For the fist time I saw the bees not as a product, or even an insect which you should treat naturally, but beings of magnificence intelligence, a being who heals the land and those around it, a being of light, a being of healing. I learnt to treat each hive as it's own individual, each one unique in it's own way, with it's own repitoir of knowledge passed on from generation to generation. And to ask god to send blessings on each and every hive. I realised that I am not a keeper but simply an observer, and by observing and listening, I will allow God to heal me and the environment through the bees. Ever since reading this book and this realisation, every time now I open a hive, I send love and peace from my heart to the hive essence, and I always, thanks to god, walk away, with a deep sense of calm and gratitude, the thrumming energy within me reawakened, and that wonderful warm, fuzzy feeling. I now not only leave with that feeling after observing the hive essence, but also after observing any part of nature, from the vast sky to the tiny ants running about at our feet. I have learnt from this book, from jaqueline freeman, and ultimately God, that all we must do is listen, observe and witness, to all of creation around us, witness the divine in everything, and that ultimatey by doing so we willl be taught by nature, by God.It's time we stopped acting blindly with ignorance, but listen, observe and learn, so that we ultimtately be the beings who we are supposed to be. Not beings of destruction but beings of divine healing to the environment around us, beings who creation strive and desire to be around, for we give energy,love and gratitude to everything around us, being the means by which God will make creation thrive.So thank you God, thank you bees, and thank you Jaqueline Freeman, for a book that has made me a better person.

lo raccomando a tutti! e un approccio sensibile e curioso all'apicultura, con spunti per una relazione rispettosa con le api e il ambiente,da leggere più volte perchè pieno di sfumature e passaggi molto belli

Commercial beekeepers may look on this book as 'for softies', not realistic, but for me this makes perfect sense. This is the way I experience caring for my bees. I'm glad Jacqueline Freeman is sharing this with the world and I hope many people will follow this example so bees will thrive and survive as they have been doing for millions of years :-)

A must read for anyone with bees!!!! Amazing and enlightening