Bookshelf

Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland

Steven Falk, with illustrations by Richard Lewington 2015 432 pages, £31.50, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, UK and USA

This is a fantastic new field guide fulfilling an urgent need for a comprehensive guide to the 270 species of bees present in the British Isles. The first 50 or so pages are a very useful introduction, explaining about life cycle, habitat, field techniques and the classification of bees into six families. The guide helps the reader to ascertain that an insect is indeed a bee (and not a fly or a wasp), and then to determine its gender. For each species, there are photographs of male and female, a description, and distribution map. Keys to the genera are provided too, so that this guide will help people towards identifying bees, whatever their entomological experience. There are over 700 colour photographs and 1,000 drawings in this information packed work. This marvellous book will surely help to gain wider awareness and appreciation of bees and greatly inform the various citizen science endeavours now underway. The last species mentioned is the honey bee and sadly the information provided is not completely accurate – it should have stated that British honey bees are an indigenous species: wild colonies have been surviving here since the retreat of the last ice age, as small leaved lime trees spread northwards. This error does not detract from what is otherwise a fantastic new book.

Honeybee Veterinary Medicine: Apis mellifera L.

Nicolas Vidal-Naquet 2015 260 pages, £60, 5m publishing, UK

This is a cguide to all pathogens known to affect Apis mellifera. It is a comprehensive textbook, describing in detail honey bee biology, environmental problems and intoxication, viruses and viral diseases, bacteria, parasitic, fungal and protozoon diseases, pests and enemies. Principles of good sanitary practise are described and honey bee veterinary medicine and practice. A final chapter concludes that ‘colony losses in general, irrespective of the cause, are complex disorders that probably involve many stressors.’ A useful text for veterinarians.

Beginner’s Bee Book

Ted Hooper 2014 128 pages, £9.95, Stenlake Publishing Ltd, UK

Ted Hooper was a highly skilled and experienced British practitioner and teacher of beekeeping. In this text he provides all the advice that a good teacher would provide to a novice beekeeper. Much of the text refers to practical aspects of looking after European honey bees Apis mellifera in frame hives – Ted Hooper’s frame hive of choice was the Modified Commercial Hive. It is well written and with an excellent rage of supporting and interesting photographs.

The World of Bees (DVD)

Charles Hofmann, Text, photographs and narration; Tom Buckman, Piano score and performance; Larry Hofmann, Production, direction restoration. Hofmann studios, Minneapolis, MN, USA www.theworldofbees.com

Charles Hofmann was a commercial beekeeper in Minnesota in USA. He was also a fine photographer, and over many years he used his fabulous close-up pictures to create acclaimed talks for students about bees and beekeeping. His eldest son, Larry, has now produced this DVD based on Charles’ presentation, updating it with current technical possibilities, to create an extremely useful and engaging explanation of all the major aspects of bees, their flora, and the craft and science of beekeeping. The pictures are the best, achieving Charles’ aim of showing bees ‘as other bees see them’. Of course, Minnesota has long, cold winters and beekeeping appropriate for this climate is the system that is presented. This DVD would be useful for schools and for presentation at beekeepers’ meetings.