Bookshelf

Why not top bar hives?

A look at the practicalities of keeping bees in top-bar hives

J R Slade

2013 40 pages £11.50 (US$20; €14) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 978-1-908904-42-3

Why not indeed? The author describes a method - for beekeeping in the UK using top-bar hives - that works well, and this brief text will allow others to follow easily his proven method. Beginners who opt for top-bar hives do not have it so easy as those who follow more mainstream methods because there are comparatively few books that describe exactly what to do. Concise and useful texts like this one certainly help to redress the balance.

Beekeeping for beginners

Andrew Richards revised by John Phipps

2014 90 pages £10 (US$17; €12) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 978-1-908904-40-9

A succinct and readable guide to conventional British frame-hive beekeeping. This modest book provides lots of sensible advice for beginners, and will be appreciated by seasoned beekeepers too, who will quickly recognise that hints and tips reveal that the author really knows his topic. The 90 pages answer all the questions that beginners ask: how much will it cost, how much time will it take, how to get started? Terms are explained, as are the pros and cons of different management methods. Handy guides are provided for operations like making up frames, and making candy. The book is rendered more attractive by John Phipps’ excellent photographs. sparse, monochrome illustrations and there’s a lot of colourful competition out there.

Propolis – the healing power of the bee colony

Klaus Nowottnick

2014 68 pages £11 (US$18; €13) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 978-1-908904-15-7

Propolis derives its name from the Greek words ‘pro’ meaning before and ‘polis’ the city, i.e. describing something which the bees produce at the front of their nest. The ancient origin of its name reveals how it has been known for thousands of years for its healing properties. Yet it is not so easy to find reliable information about propolis. This useful book, first published 20 years ago, is one of the few texts that exist and it is good to see it now reprinted. It contains practical advice on how to harvest propolis from bees, many recipes for making tinctures and ointments, and instructions for the use of propolis in apitherapy.

The Wildlife Garden:

The Essential Guide to Attracting Wildlife into Your Garden

John Lewis-Stempel

2014 166 pages £8.99 (US$15; €10) Published by How to Books ISBN 978-0-7160-2349-4

John Lewis-Stempel’s last book – The Wild Life – was an entertaining account of his year living on food that he’d foraged, shot or trapped himself. So there’s more than a sense of poacher-turned-gamekeeper here when he champions protecting wildlife through creating a garden wildlife haven.

Clearly Lewis-Stempel knows his stuff – he rightly condemns the green deserts that some call lawns and offers useful insight for veg growers keen to manage pests rather than poison them off the plot. Like other modern wildlife gardeners he emphasises that you can have a beautiful – even orderly – garden and still have it teem with wildlife, if you garden wisely. But it’s a big subject for a small book with sparse, monochrome illustrations and there’s a lot of colourful competition out there.

Fergus Collins, Editor BBC Countryfile Magazine