Bookshelf

Buy these titles at www.beesfordevelopment.org/catalog or at our shop in Monmouth, UK

The beekeeper’s handbook

Diana Sammataro and Alphonso Avitabile forward by Dewey Caron 2011 (4th edition) 308 pages £25 (€40) S125

An excellent new edition of this comprehensive guide - packed full of useful facts and information. Written primarily for beekeepers in North America, some of the practical descriptions inevitably relate only to frame hive beekeeping with European races of honey bees as practised there, but the clearly described descriptions of many apicultural skills are widely applicable. A special feature of this text is the amount of factual information it contains and the clarity with which these facts are presented – accompanied when necessary by clear, helpful diagrams. Finally an up to date bibliography and resource list, complete this extremely useful text.

Beekeeping - a beginner’s guide

David Cramp 2012 180 pages £13.99 (€21) C755

A text for would-be beekeepers thinking of taking up the craft as a hobby, written in a chatty, question and answer style. It covers all the questions that people ask before they embark on beekeeping, its style making it highly readable, and then continues accompanying them season by season through their first year of beekeeping and into their second. Intended primarily for people in UK.

Beauty and the bees

Sara Robb 2012 120 pages £11.99(€18) R455

The author’s first book, Dr Sara’s Honey Potions has proved to be one of the most popular books currently available providing recipes for making toiletries containing honey and beeswax. Sara’s second book provides a scientific approach to using bee products in foods and cosmetics. Many of the recipes have been researched by Sara from a family archive extending over four generations. Hearty, home recipes including sweet and savoury honey products, beeswax and honey beauty recipes, and Aunty Bea’s recipes. Using her scientific background, the author explains the anti-oxidative properties of the ingredients, quoting scientific research to validate the efficacy of these tried and tested traditional products. This new work contains original recipes and guidance that are not published elsewhere, a useful bibliography listing the research that has been cited, and an Appendix giving conversion tables making the text useful world-wide.

The price of gold - poems about the honey bee

Edited by Joy Howard 2012 72 pages £9 (€14) H105

A golden covered book containing a collection of sixty poems that celebrate honey bees. Interestingly every one of them is written by a woman, and the book tells us a little about each poet. A sweet gift of a book.

From A to Bee

James Dearsley 2012 224 pages £9.99 (€15) D940

James Dearsley represents the younger demographic now becoming avid beekeepers. An excellent communicator and internet savvy, From A to Bee follows the year of his metamorphosis from theoretical to practical beekeeper. Highly readable and encouraging for others thinking of taking up the craft.

Honey - a beekeeper’s guide (DVD)

Great Takes Television Ltd narrated by Susan Rae 2011 Running time 120 minutes £20.95 (€31) VID49

A useful film explaining honey production for beekeepers in the UK and featuring many well known experts from British beekeeping. There are seven sections starting with Honey and the law, in which the legal definition of honey is explained and its practical consequences for beekeepers. Honey harvesting shows ways of harvesting honey from frame hives with minimal disturbance to the bees. Honey extraction emphasises the need to meet the high standards necessary for food handling. Honey varieties shows footage of judges at the UK National Honey Show (see Look Ahead, page 12) explaining differences in colour and appearance of honey. Honey for sale describes the requirements for bottling and labelling honey, whilst Honey for show outlines the numerous classes of honey and the high standards demanded for entries at shows. The final section describes the long but fascinating journey of Honey for mead. Useful and interesting for schools and beekeeping groups, and an excellent way to learn more facts about honey.