Bookshelf

Soap recipes: seventy tried-and-true ways to make modern soap with herbs, beeswax and vegetable oils

by Elaine C White

Valley Hills Press, Starkville, USA (1995) 224 pages. Paperback. Available from Bees for Development price £16.50

Is there really that much you can say about soap? ...This new publication by the award-winning author of the popular Super Formulas certainly thinks so! The book begins with the basic procedures involved with soap making, and fragrances and colours used. Then hundreds of recipes including such interesting concoctions as “the mean green washing machine’, “the bee’s knees” and “pollen pleasure”. Tips on soap selling as your own business, what can go wrong, and frequently asked questions are backed up by an index, appendices, bibliography and conversion tables.

Bees and beekeeping in the former Dutch East Indies: with some references to Brunei, Serawak and Peninsular Malaysia

by Remy de Vries

Copyright Remy de Vries (1994) Printed at Sachit Press, Kathmandu, Nepal. 49 pages. Paperback. Available from Bees for Development price £6.00

This book will come as delight for those interested in the traditions of Asian beekeeping. Remy de Vries has surveyed the vast literature written in the Dutch language during 150 years of exploration of south-east Asia. The anecdotes reveal the great significance of bees and beekeeping in both the religion and daily life of people in this region.

A few examples:

- Numerous authors from 1903 onwards expressed their ambition to keep Apis dorsata inside hives. (This idea was still being tried, fruitlessly, by people in the 1980s).

- Despite a range of useful species of both Asian honeybees and stingless bees, colonialists always tried hard to introduce western honeybees.

- We are told of an early beeswax barter Pigafetta (1521) during his visit to the Moluccas obtained fifteen pounds of wax (stingless bee wax) in exchange for one pound of scrap iron.

- And finally Riedel (1886) informs us: for the head hunters of Wetar (north-east of Timor) there were two reasons to cut off a stranger's head when met in the forest: firstly, the stranger might be honey robber. and secondly, his dead body would attract bees to settle in the forest.

Pollination of cultivated plants in the tropics

edited by David W Roubik with eleven additional contributors

FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 118, Rome, Italy (1995) 196 pages Paperback. Available from Bees for Development price £18.50.

Here we have something new and excellent: a guide to pollination resources in the tropics. The book is compendium of information concerning all the different aspects of the pollination of tropical crops: pollinators, pollination methods, ecological considerations, how to study pollination, using pollinators in tropical agriculture, and much more.

One of the three appendices is useful list of 1330 economically important plants species: their use, origin and pollination information. Indices by scientific and common names are provided, and in user-friendly way.

This A4 size book is packed full of information, all of which is accompanied by interesting and stimulating black and white illustrations.

Better beginnings for beekeepers

by Adrian Waring BIBBA, Ripley, United Kingdom (1995) 68 pages. Paperback. Available from Bees for Development price £5.75

The best way to learn the craft of beekeeping is from a beekeeper with years of experience. Such beekeeper will tell you what you need to know, not what you ought to know

Adrian Waring’s book starts with information about bees, and proceeding through equipment, management, harvest, and diseases, he describes everything that a beginner beekeeper needs to know. This would be a helpful guide for anyone thinking of starting. They will gain the understanding of bees that leads to good beekeeping. Some of the information relates to frame hive beekeeping in the United Kingdom.

The wisdom of the hive

by Thomas D Seeley

Harvard University Press, London, United Kingdom (1996) 289 pages. Hardback. Available from Bees for Development price £36.50

They say good scientists are judged not by their answers but by their questions. By this measure Tom Seeley must be amongst the great bee scientists. He has asked the questions whose answers illustrate the great wisdom of the hive. Some of his questions:

“...which bees gather information? ... Which information is shared? How do employed foragers read information on the dance floor? How does colony adjust nectar collecting according to supply? How do comb builders know when to build comb? What stimulates bees to collect water? What tells them to stop? ...”

Understanding of the behaviour of honeybee colonies has moved on fast. Some of Tom Seeley’s first research in the late 1970s showed that colony monitors an area of more than 100 km² around its hive and rapidly redistributes foragers accordingly. Since then has come understanding that nectar processing is fine-tuned to match nectar collecting, pollen intake is controlled by supply and demand, comb is only built when it is needed.

Tom Seeley explains the mechanisms by which many such things work within the honeybee colony; he explains what we know, and how we know it. Some mechanisms are simple, others are highly complex. Together these give rise to co-ordination of the colony: there is no system of central planning within the hive neither the queen nor any other particular bees are ‘in charge’.

Space here does not allow me to pay proper justice to this marvellous book. Most beekeepers already think their bees are pretty smart this book will only increase your admiration. A good value textbook and essential reading for all who dare to lecture on honeybee biology.

VIDEO SHELF

Rafter beekeeping with Apis dorsata in Vietnam

Running time 30 minutes. VHS £24.85 including postage packing

ORDER NOW WHILE STOCKS LAST!

African honeybees how to handle them in top-bar hives

Script by Bernhard Clauss

Running time 22 minutes. VHS £19.65 including postage packing

WAYS TO PAY

• Secure order and payment at www.beesfordevelopment.org

• PayPal to store@beesfordevelopment.org

• Credit/Debit card: We need card number, name on card, valid from and expiry dates, card issue number (if given), security number on back of card.

• Cheque/bank draft in GBP payable to Bees for Development

1 Agincourt Street, Monmouth NP25 3DZ, UK Tel: +44 (0)1600 714848 info@beesfordevelopment.org www.beesfordevelopment.org