Bookshelf

The MAPPS (Marketing Assistance & Product Promotion) guide to keeping bees in Somalia

Progressive Interventions

2001 63 pages Paperback Available from Bees for Development price on application Order code P210

This richly illustrated spiral bound notebook is written to assist existing beekeepers to improve and expand production and encourage new beekeepers. Although written for Somali beekeepers and beekeeping groups (with their input) and available in both English and Somali editions, the manual will be of use to any group working with beekeepers in East Africa. Sections included are: basics of bee biology; getting started (local hives are promoted and information on top-bar hives is included), the beekeeping year; honey harvesting; marketing of bee products; and two especially useful sections - starting a beekeeping enterprise, and advice for promoting beekeeping in developing countries (Somalia included). The text is non-technical and very readable with good illustrations (a cartoon bee helps break up text to provide each page with an attractive appearance) and basic common-sense recommendations.

Workshop on alternative techniques in queen and hive production for Apis cerana indica

Paini Hills Conservation Council

2000 47 pages Paperback Available from Bees for Development price £15.65 Order code P110

The Workshop in February 2000 was co-sponsored by the Palni Hills Conservation Council and The Danish Beekeeping Federation. These Proceedings include nine of the presentations. Very useful are sections on the Jensen method of queen rearing (as described in B&D 55) and the Mulderry hive (Gor Apis cerana) both by Danish beekeeper Mogens Jensen, information on Palni Hills and Apis cerana beekeeping, and Bees and Biodiversity by Pandurang Hegde of Karnataka, India. There are colour photographs of queen rearing and Mulderry hive making.

Some honeybee plants of Bas-Congo Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Paul Latham

Available from Bees for Development price £48.40 Order code L115 Paul Latham has revised his book Beekeeping in Bas Congo into this new title that includes more species of plants found throughout the humid tropical regions of Africa. There are colour photographs on almost all of the 100 pages.

Bees and crop pollination - crisis, crossroads, conservation

edited by Constance S Stubbs and Francis A Drummond

2001 156 pages Paperback Available from Entomological Society of America, Thomas Say Publications, Lanham, MD, USA. Price US$ 43.75 (postage extra)

With fully 70% of the 1000 major cultivated worldwide crops insect pollinated, the physical/chemical fragmentation of habitats has accelerated a crisis in decline of abundance and species richness of bees and other pollinators. Diseases, mites, insecticide poisoning, Africanisation in the Americas and economic instability of honey markets have specifically threatened honeybees, the most important insect of planned pollination situations. Beyond describing the crises, this paperback, a result of an Entomological Society of America Symposium, seeks to describe the crossroads we need for a more sustainable approach towards crop pollination and issues of conservation of bee species to ensure plant biodiversity preservation.

Chapters are by Peter Kevan (University of Guelph, Canada) on ecosystem health for pollinators, Bernd Heinrich and Gabriela Chavarria (University of Vermont) on bumblebees, Suzanne T Batra (retired from USDA, Beltsville) on pollen bees, the editors (University of Maine) on mason bees and vitality of the Maine lowbush blueberry ecosystem and Dewey M Caron (University of Delaware) on Africanisation of the Neotropics. An appendix to this last chapter summarises pollination requirements of important tropical crops of the Americas building on the FAO Bulletin #118, Pollination of cultivated plants in the tropics (edited by David Roubik) reviewed in B&D 38 and available from Bees for Development price £24.10 (code R510).

Pollination with mason bees: a gardener’s guide to managing mason bees for fruit production

Margriet Dogterom

2002 80 pages Paperback Available from Bees for Development price £13 Order code D125

As described above, we may anticipate that other species of bees will be increasingly utilised for pollination purposes. This new book describes the mason bees widespread in North America, Osmia lignaria. How to identify them, create several different types of nesting places for them (drilled wood, cardboard straws, paper straws etc), nest placement, storing cocoons over the winter, and every other aspect of caring for and encouraging populations of mason bees in your garden.

Essence and mechanism of nest abandonment by honeybee swarms

Zbigniew Lipinski

2001 293 pages Hardback Text in English translated by the author from the original Polish Available from Bees for Development price £31.20 Order code L350

This gold medal winning book from the 2001 Apimondia Congress, Durban explains the author’s hypothesis on why bees swarm. He feels that stress is a stimulus for young bees that we see in the behaviour of clustering, whether within the hive, at the entrance or in swarming/ absconding/nest abandonment. The swarming mood intensity results from progressive queen substance deficiency and stressors, especially acting on young bees. The stress reaction |s reversible. He documents the extensive literature on swarming (62 pages of references) to explain his theory of how stress is so vital to clustering.

Major points made by the author are:

- We should protect bees from the action of stress stimuli;@

- We need to keep young honeybee queens In hives for their potent tranquillising effect on bees;

- We must keep reserves of indigenous bees because they have the genes for bees to respond to stimuli typical of their environment (such as stress that leads to swarming).

Figures following the text graphically illustrate his theory and 22 photographs (including one of the author wearing a bee beard) show clustering. All in all it is a well-presented argument for his theory of why bees swarm, abscond and abandon their nests and how concentrating on cluster behaviour can help interpret their response.

Enfermedades de las abejas

Wolfgang Ritter

2001 146 pages Paperback in Spanish translated by Jaime Escobar from the 1996 original German edition Bienenkrankherten Available from Bees for Development price £19.30 Order code R220

This publication is not a literal translation of the original book by the author. It has been streamlined and information on European laws related to disease left out. Unfortunately the section of regulations of diseases in Spanish countries is not adequately substituted - it is only two pages in length. Like the original, the text is richly illustrated with attractive black and white drawings and illustrations. The addition of numerous colour photographs makes this a more attractive and practical book. The text provides excellent, up-to-date coverage of bee diseases.

The book is organised as five major chapters namely: diseases of the brood, diseases of the adult, poisoning of bees, abnormalities, and pests. Varroa mites are covered as a brood illness and tracheal mite are included in the chapter on adult diseases. There are also short chapters on bee biology, colony life, and prevention, discovery and control of diseases. In suspect situations, the advice given is to consult a veterinarian after taking samples.

Arboles meliferos nativos de Mesoamérica

Henry G Arce, Luis A Sanchez, Judith Slaa, Pablo E Sanchez-Vindas, Alberto Ortiz, Johan W van Veen and Marinus J Sommeijer

2001 208 pages Paperback In Spanish Available from PRAM, AP 475-3000, Heredia, Costa Rica price on request

This magnificent paperback has 64 colour photographs (flowers and/or fruit plus the tree structure) of major native trees of benefit to bees. It was produced by Programa Regional de Apicultura y Meliponicultura, PRAM(see B&D 59 page 8). Text for each plant covered includes a description, ecological usefulness, benefit to bees (Apis mellifera and indigenous stingless bees), flowering period, uses of the species, abundance, distribution (mainly in Costa Rica) and method of reproduction Scientific and common names of the species are included. Introductory chapters cover bee diversity, pollination ecology and a chapter on how vitally important pollinator protection is for forest conservation

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