Bookshelf

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

Top-bar hive beekeeping – wisdom and pleasure combined

Wyatt A Mangum 2012 411 pages £55 (US$85; €64) M570

A culmination of 25 years of experience of keeping and observing bees in top-bar hives in North Carolina, USA. The author runs 200 top-bar hives for pollination and honey and beeswax production - meaning that his designs, methods and practical tips are proven and efficient. Ensuring that the bees build straight combs, the advantages of selling honeycomb, how to make an external feeder, are all covered – and more – with utmost practical detail. The author uses mobile two foot (60 cm) hives for pollination, and five foot (150 cm) hives for honey production. While the context is US, there is a great abundance of interest for beekeepers in other countries. For example, how do you make foundation starter strips when no foundation is available? The answer is to make starter strips from intact comb cut from a bees’ nest! This book reminds us that keeping bees for profit requires an excellent understanding of bees, a whole lot of ingenuity and a willingness to learn from trying things out. The excellent pictures on their own make this book worth buying. Although your wildlife might be different (lovely endnotes on night-time game photography in the apiary) this is the ultimate and excellent reference book for commercial top-bar beekeeping. An original text full of reliable advice.

Pot-honey – a legacy of stingless bees

Patricia Vit, Silvia R M Pedro & David Roubik (eds) 2013 697 pages Hardcover £144.50 (US$226; €167) V555

An important new compilation of information about stingless bees. Forty chapters contributed by dozens of experts in their fields, covering all aspects of stingless bees: origin, biodiversity and behaviour; stingless bees’ role in culture, traditions and environment; plants used by them; sensory attributes, composition and biological properties of honey and their marketing and standards. This is a wonderful gathering of data and detail, highly valuable and interesting for beekeepers, anthropologists and researchers working in this sector.

The thinking beekeeper – a guide to natural beekeeping in top-bar hives

Christy Hemenway 2013 195 pages £17 (US$26; €20) H555

An excellent new resource offering clear and practical advice on how to keep bees in top-bar hives. The author takes a fresh approach, briefly describing how we reached our current beekeeping status explaining why It’s all about the wax (as discussed on page three of this Journal). The author presents reasons why frame hive beekeeping denies to beekeepers the perfection of the natural systems that are at work in the honey bee colony. By using foundation-less hives (for example top-bar hives or Warré hives) bees are able to live and nest in a more natural way than they are able to do in frame hives.

The rest of the text provides information on making a top-bar hive, obtaining bees, overwintering and many other skills for looking after bees thoughtfully. Written primarily for beekeepers in North America, this text is a stimulating read for beekeepers world-wide.

Home and away – adventures in beekeeping in the UK and Africa

John Home 2012 136 pages £12 (US$18; €14) H550

A childhood passion for bees turned into his profession and for many years John Home was a commercial beekeeper owning and running Fosse Way Honey. At its peak, he managed 350 colonies in 30 different locations - transporting his hives around the UK for pollination contracts and marketing top quality honey that won numerous prizes at the UK National Honey and Royal Shows. He was also Chairman of the UK Bee Farmers Association and joined several of the campaigns by British beekeepers, for example concerning problems caused by insecticides, and issues surrounding EU legislation. Much of this book is about John’s experiences since retirement when he became a volunteer with the UK charity Bees Abroad, of which he is currently Chair. He describes his experiences of visiting associations in Africa with his wife Mary, sharing expertise and knowledge with beekeepers he has met on his many travels.

Prices in US$ and € are approximate and for guidance only

Publications from ICIMOD

Quality assurance for the honey trade in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region

Uma Partap, Min B Gurung and Surendra R Joshi

2012 50 pages

The countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region produce more than 20% of all honey sold worldwide. However many producers in the region have limited access to markets in developed countries, and face difficulty meeting stringent trade requirements. This publication provides information on the standards needed for trade in the HKH and international markets and is especially focused on the needs of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. China and India already have established honey quality assurance systems.

Value of insect pollinators to Himalayan agricultural economies

Uma Partap, Tej Partap, Harish K Sharma, Pushkin Phartiyal, Aungsathwi Marma, Nar B Tamang, Tan Ken and Muhammad Siddique Munawar

2012 55 pages

This study assesses the economic value of pollination services to agriculture in areas of the HKH region using the FAO array of crop categories*. The economic value of insect pollination for the crops and areas covered by the study (the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Chinese Himalayan provinces, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir - north-western Indian Himalayas, Uttarakhand - central Indian Himalayas, and the Himalayan region of Pakistan) is estimated at US$2.7 (€2) billion annually. The study considers the vulnerability of different crop categories to pollinator decline and concludes that the countries of the HKH must include provisions for management and conservation of pollinators as a part of their agricultural policies, together with plans to improve the food security and livelihoods of mountain farmers.

* Methodology provided by Gallai and Vaissière in 2009 based on the hypothesis that the economic impact of pollinators on agricultural output is measurable through the use of dependence ratios that quantify the impact of a lack of insect pollinators on crop production value. It also looks at the vulnerability of different crop categories to pollinator decline.

These publications are available on line at www.icimod.org/publications

ICIMOD have kindly donated several printed copies for distribution in BfD resource boxes (see page 20) to recipients living in Asia.