Book Reports January/February 2020

This January I read  Keeping Bees With A Smile. In February I read The Richest Man In Babylon. These are my overviews.

Keeping Bees With A Smile by Fedor Lazutin. 

I read this book because I wanted to learn about horizontal beehives. Fedor Lazutin relates his experience keeping bees in horizontal hives and what practices have yielded success over the years in his apiary. He also refrences many historical publications to learn about different methods that worked to control pests before the modern chemicals were available. This book was my introduction to learning about honey bees. I found this book to be very interesting and the concepts easy to grasp. I like his philosophy. He wants to keep bees in such a way as to allow the bees to arrange their hive as they see best and in a way that requires very little maintenance. Almost letting the bees keep themselves. Fedor Lazutin finds that horizontal hives don't need as much rearranging or heavy lifting as vertical hives. Another thing he talks about extensively in the book is different bee races. He keeps bees at a very high northern latitude in Russia. (He is as far north as Canada.) His bees have to stay in the hive for up to six months with no potty breaks. Not all races of honey bees have an intestinal tract that can go six months without a cleansing flight. He recommends that you keep bees that are native to your locale. They are more likely to survive your conditions. The book also has detailed diagrams for building his hive design and diagrams of frame configurations. I would like to try this type of bee keeping in the future, hopefully near future.

The Richest Man In Babylon by George Clason.

This is a book of parables set in ancient Babylon that illustrate sound financial principles. At first I thought this book could not possibly have good advice, because, Babylon. Hello! Babylon symbolizes everything wicked! But nothing about these principles make them Babylonian. They are just common sense ideas. They were not found in ancient Babylonian writings. The author must have thought ancient Babylon would make an interesting backdrop. I learned a few things from the stories.  I think this book is really well written. While reading you feel as though you have been transported through time, and are sitting in the scene with the characters. I really enjoyed the ancient historic setting. One lesson that is stressed throughout the book is: make your money make money. Don't hoard your gold or be a miser. Work hard. Live on less than you make. Invest what money you have extra. Only invest in areas you have experience. Only take advise from those who have experience in the field of which they are offering advice. Don't procrastinate once you have come to a decision about an action. Many opportunities are wasted by delay. Don't live an extravagant or lavish lifestyle no matter how much money you have. I found this book to be inspiring and motivating. It was easy to read and pretty short. The copy I read is 144 pages.

What have you been reading lately? Do you have any reading goals for this year? Tell me about them in the comments!