A Perthshire Beekeeper: Athole Kirkwood's beekeeping diary, edited by Fiona Mackenzie

"Athole Kirkwood was one of the great figures of Scottish beekeeping, and deserves to rank alongside some of the finest names in British beekeeping over the past century, including R.O.B. Manley, Brother Adam, A.W. Gale of Marlborough, and E.W.D. Madoc of Norfolk. This book, compiled by his daughter from his diaries and records, charts his beekeeping life from the mid-1940s until his death in 2019. It records both his successes and setbacks, giving a rare insight into a lifetime devoted to bees. During that remarkable career, he produced more than 1.5 million pounds of honey — an extraordinary achievement in any circumstances, and all the more impressive given the challenges of the Scottish climate." – Jeremy Burbidge Perthshire, one of the most diverse and beautiful areas of Scotland, was the district where Athole Kirkwood had undertaken to put down roots, resolving to establish himself in full time beekeeping. The area couldn't have been more perfect. It was renowned for its soft fruit farms in the valleys of the Tay and Earn, ideal for a delicious early flower honey, and in the north the county featured the foothills of the Highlands and the vast sweeps of bell and ling heather crucial for the later crop fundamental to a Scottish honey farm. The only real problem was the weather! The diary he began in Glasgow at the age of 17, when his fascination with bees began to take hold, recounts the often bumpy ride to success and reveals the determination of a man totally convinced, in spite of many warnings to the contrary, that a large honey farm could thrive in Scotland. This is his journey.