Bookshelf

Mating biology of honey bees (Apis mellifera)

Gudrun Koeniger, Nikolaus Koeniger, Jamie Ellis, Lawrence Connor

2014 155 pages Hardcover £21 (US$32; €28) Published by Wicwas Press ISBN 9781878075383

Beekeepers are always fascinated to learn about the mating behaviour of honey bees, and researchers have worked over centuries to unravel the secrets. The facts about mating – that it takes place away from the colony, high in the air, and that virgin queens make mating flights, to visit drone congregation areas – have always made this marvellous topic captivating.

The authors of this new book are the world’s experts on this topic - and modern technology has permitted the secrets to be investigated and understood. With help from excellent photographs and images they explain all about honey bees’ wonderful and complex behaviour - in a way that is readable, comprehensive and destined to make the interested beekeeper even more fascinated.

Beekeeping Volume 1 – Ron Brown OBE BSc

Edited by John Phipps

2014 112 pages £9.95 (US$15; €14) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 9781908904645

Ron Brown was a true Master of Beekeeping - he was clever, thoughtful, imaginative, enthusiastic and a wonderful communicator of knowledge. This paperback republishes some of Ron Brown’s articles written for Beekeepers’ Quarterly magazine between 1993 and 2006. Ron first encountered bees when he was living in Zambia during the 1950s. He realised the intelligence of a colony that he rescued from his garage, and was smitten for the rest of life. Living in Central Africa he had no access to beekeeping equipment and invented (so he thought) the top-bar hive – later to discover that Thomas White Woodbury of Exeter in England (near to where Ron eventually lived) had been using much the same equipment in 1859. These articles are full of interesting facts, practical tips, recipes and anecdotes that will appeal to anyone who, like Ron, is smitten by bees!

Notes from a clifftop apiary

Rowland Molony

2014 92 pages £8.50 (US$13; €12) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 9781908904607

Roland Molony keeps his bees on his allotment on the cliffs above Lyme Bay in the southwest corner of the UK. He believes that bees benefit from living by the sea: on shore winds are mild and pleasant, severe temperatures never last too long and the early morning sunlight warms the colony and encourages foraging. The book is a light hearted collection of well observed anecdotes – most with a connection to bees in there somewhere!

A practical guide to producing heather honey

Tony Jefferson

2014 46 pages £8.95 (US$14; €12) Published by Northern Bee Books ISBN 9781908904614

Heather honey is highly prized, and highly priced. The author of this new book, and generations of his family before him, focus all their beekeeping efforts on harvesting this special honey during a few weeks of July and August. There are two types of heather honey. Bell heather flowers from July in the UK and provides a dark-coloured, ruby red, liquid honey. Ling heather flowers August onwards and the honey is dark brown to ruby red and more thixotropic than bell heather honey. Tony Jefferson has won many awards for the heather honey his bees produce. This guide discusses the whole process including moving colonies to the moors where the heather grows, how long to leave the colonies in place, harvesting and processing the honey and what to do after cropping.

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