A Dallas-Based 501(c)3 Non-Profit Beekeepers Association serving North Texas

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Our Book for Tue. June 9, 7pm

For many of us, the buzzing of a bee elicits panic. But the next time you hear that low droning sound, look closer: the bee has navigated to this particular spot for a reason using a fascinating set of tools. She may be using her sensitive olfactory organs, which provide a 3D scent map of her surroundings. She may be following visual landmarks or instructions relayed by a hive-mate. She may even be tracking electrostatic traces left on flowers by other bees. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees invites us to follow bees' mysterious paths and experience their alien world.

Although their brains are incredibly small—just one million neurons compared to humans' one hundred billion—bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee's way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. We travel into the field and to the laboratories of noted bee biologists who have spent their careers digging into the questions most of us never thought to ask (for example: Do bees dream? And if so, why?). With each discovery, Buchmann's insatiable curiosity and sense of wonder is infectious.

(type from Amazon)

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May 2026

Not so long ago, in a small island nation in the South Pacific, beekeepers produced a most peculiar honey. It was much darker than the clover honey everyone put on their toast in the morning, and it tasted very different. In fact, the honey was a problem: it was hard to get out of the combs, and even harder for beekeepers to sell.

Today that honey, manuka from New Zealand, is known around the world. It fetches high prices, and beekeepers do everything in their power to produce as much of it as possible. Wound dressings containing manuka honey are used in leading hospitals, and it has saved the lives of patients infected with disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to standard antibiotic drugs. In so doing it has forced the medical profession to rethink its position on the therapeutic properties of natural products.

This book chronicles the remarkable rags-to-riches story of manuka honey, as seen through the eyes of a New Zealand beekeeping specialist who watched it unfold from the very beginning. Its a great tale of science, in which an inquisitive university lecturer found something totally unexpected in a product everyone had written off. Its also an entertaining account of the way that seemingly simple discovery caught the international medias attention, helping enterprising New Zealanders to develop manuka honey-based products and take them all around the globe.

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April 2026

The Golden Rules of Beekeeping is your field guide companion offering practical answers the 250 most commonly asked beekeeping questions. After 20 years and 1000s of hours in the bee-yard, Blake and Kamon share their expertise through quick tips and clear answers to real problems. While not a replacement to a beginning beekeeping class, this is the book to reach for after the class to answer the questions you need in that exact moment.

Order your copy from The Bee Supply
March 2026

Monk of Buckfast Brother Adam was undeniably one of the world’s leading authorities on the races and strains of honeybees. His world-wide travel in search of bees and his beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey have inspired vast admiration. In this work we learn of the philosophy, the science and the practice of his life’s work – honey production and bee breading.

"For the Love of Bees" is an account of the life of Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey, a world famous beekeeper, by a Devon beekeeper who travelled with Adam on some of his journeys searching for the perfect bee. The story of Brother Adam and Buckfast Abbey two names that will always be linked in the beekeepers mind. An updated edition of the 1989 volume.

Click the link to read an article about Brother Adam.

Read about Brother Adam at BeeSource
February Fiction 2026

"Julie Carrick Dalton's The Last Beekeeper is a celebration of found family, an exploration of truth versus power, and the triumph of hope in the face of despair." (Hank Phillippi Ryan).

It’s been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home with one goal in mind—find the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as a way to escape the horrific conditions of state housing. While she feels threatened by their presence at first, the friends soon become her newfound family, offering what she hasn't felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Maybe it's time to forget the family secrets buried on the farm and focus on her future.

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January 2026

Being among bees is a full-body experience, Mark Winston writes―from the low hum of tens of thousands of insects and the pungent smell of honey and beeswax, to the sight of workers flying back and forth between flowers and the hive. The experience of an apiary slows our sense of time, heightens our awareness, and inspires awe.

Bee Time presents Winston’s reflections on three decades spent studying these creatures, and on the lessons they can teach about how humans might better interact with one another and the natural world. Like us, honeybees represent a pinnacle of animal sociality. How they submerge individual needs into the colony collective provides a lens through which to ponder human societies.

Winston explains how bees process information, structure work, and communicate, and examines how corporate boardrooms are using bee societies as a model to improve collaboration. He investigates how bees have altered our understanding of agricultural ecosystems and how urban planners are looking to bees in designing more nature-friendly cities .The relationship between bees and people has not always been benign.

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December 2025

This illustrated account of beekeeping is rooted in the practical experience of G. M. Doolittle, whose techniques resulted in good yields of honey.

Writing in the early 20th century, several of Doolittle's practical ideas hold some interest for the modern apiarist, in spite of how modern equipment has improved and evolved. Although the book is primarily aimed at the specialist who maintains many bee colonies as a line of work, the author explains that his observations can also serve as useful for the home-based hobbyist who aspires to raise only a single colony.

We are shown how the bees are cared for, and several of Doolittle's methods for increasing the activity and yield. The techniques explained include supplying a colony with a queen through the use of a tubal cage, and protecting the valuable queens from harm during transport with carefully-built housing. We are also given advice on dealing with pests such as mice, and keeping bees happy and productive through changes in weather.

(description acc. to Amazon.com)

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Subscribe to the TVBA Book Club Mailing List:

  • Join this list and you will receive an e-mail each month with the title of the book-of-the-month (chosen by club members at a previous meeting).
  • You will also receive occasional e-mail reminders of the meeting date, time and location, should there be any changes. 
  • Joining this list does NOT put your e-mail on the TVBA Monthly Newsletter list, nor vice-versa.

  • Many titles can be found at the your local library, or via a digital download using Hoopla or Libby (if your library is registered with these services).
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