Bees is an outstanding collection of photographs showing these fascinating insects in their natural habitat. Honey bees, bumblebees, mining bees, dwarf bees, carpenter, leafcutter and mason bees: bees come in many different types, with more than 16,000 species worldwide. The bees we are most familiar with, bumblebees and honey bees, live in colonies and play a major role in pollinating the crops, plants and flowers around us. And bees produce honey - reputedly the food of the gods - a function of bees' lifecycle, which humans have exploited for millennia. Many bees today are domesticated, and beekeepers collect honey, beeswax, pollen, and royal jelly from hives for human use. A typical bee produces a teaspoon of honey (about 5 grams) in her lifetime. Bees can communicate many ways through the movement of their wings and bodies - most famously, with the 'waggle dance', where they make figure-of- eight circles to let other bees know the direction and distance of nectar. With full captions explaining how bees live, function communally, communicate, feed and reproduce, Bees is an insightful examination in 190 outstanding colour photographs of mankind's favourite insect.

Beekeeping is surprisingly easy; the bees are the ones that do all the hard work. In Bees & Honey, Rachel de Thample tells you everything you need to know about setting up a hive in both rural and urban locations, keeping happy and healthy bees and harvesting golden pots of honey for use in your kitchen. This practical handbook will enable you to establish a colony of honeybees and understand exactly what is going on inside the hive. You’ll be guided through the bee’s year month-by-month, and be given instructions for sustainably harvesting the products of their hard work. And once you have retrieved your first pot of delicious honey, there are recipes for cakes and buns, sauces and marinades, and drinks and tonics, as well as some creative ideas for using the beeswax. With an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and plenty of clear step-by-step photography, this book will be the only one you ever need on the art of keeping bees.

Queen bee. Worker bees. Busy as a bee. These phrases have shaped perceptions of women for centuries, but how did these stereotypes begin? Who are the women who keep bees and what can we learn from them? Beeconomy examines the fascinating evolution of the relationship between women and bees around the world. From Africa to Australia to Asia, women have participated in the pragmatic aspects of honey hunting and in the more advanced skills associated with beekeeping as hive technology has advanced through the centuries. Synthesizing the various aspects of hive-related products, such as beewax and cosmetics, as well as the more specialized skills of queen production and knowledge-based economies of research and science, noted bee expert Tammy Horn documents how and why women should consider being beekeepers. The women profiled in the book suggest ways of managing careers, gender discrimination, motherhood, marriage, and single-parenting -- all while enjoying the community created by women who work with honey bees. Horn finds in beekeeping an opportunity for a new sustainable economy, one that takes into consideration environment, children, and family needs. Beeconomy not only explores globalization, food history, gender studies, and politics; it is a collective call to action.

This is the ideal guide for anyone wanting to start beekeeping and a revered reference book for experienced beekeepers. It includes information on all you need to know, including how to avoid swarms, plan requeening, or provide the colony with winter stores. It features key information on Varroa. It is copiously illustrated throughout. Fully revised and updated, this new edition of "Guide to Bees and Honey" also presents expert advice for readers who plan to maintain a few hives for personal recreational use, as well as those who want to expand an existing colony into a commercial venture.

Beekeeping is a sixteen-billion-dollar-a-year business. But the invaluable honey bee now faces severe threats from diseases, mites, pesticides, and overwork, not to mention the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder, which causes seemingly healthy bees to abandon their hives en masse, never to return.
In The Quest for the Perfect Hive, entomologist Gene Kritsky offers a concise, beautifully illustrated history of beekeeping, tracing the evolution of hive design from ancient Egypt to the present. Not simply a descriptive account, the book suggests that beekeeping's long history may in fact contain clues to help beekeepers fight the decline in honey bee numbers. Kritsky guides us through the progression from early mud-based horizontal hives to the ascent of the simple straw skep (the inverted basket which has been in use for over 1,500 years), from hive design's Golden Age in Victorian England up through the present. He discusses what worked, what did not, and what we have forgotten about past hives that might help counter the menace to beekeeping today. Indeed, while we have sequenced the honey bee genome and advanced our knowledge of the insects themselves, we still keep our bees in hives that have changed little during the past century. If beekeeping is to survive, Kritsky argues, we must start inventing again. We must find the perfect hive for our times.
For thousands of years, the honey bee has been a vital part of human culture. The Quest for the Perfect Hive not only offers a colorful account of this long history, but also provides a guide for ensuring its continuation into the future.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE A naturalist's passionate dive into the lives of bees (of all stripes)-and the natural world in her own backyard Brigit Strawbridge Howard was shocked the day she realised she knew more about the French Revolution than she did about her native trees. And birds. And wildflowers. And bees. The thought stopped her-quite literally-in her tracks. But that day was also the start of a journey, one filled with silver birches and hairy-footed flower bees, skylarks, and rosebay willow herb, and the joy that comes with deepening one's relationship with place. Dancing with Bees is Strawbridge Howard's charming and eloquent account of a return to noticing, to rediscovering a perspective on the world that had somehow been lost to her for decades and to reconnecting with the natural world. With special care and attention to the plight of pollinators, including honeybees, bumblebees, and solitary bees, and what we can do to help them, Strawbridge Howard shares fascinating details of the lives of flora and fauna that have filled her days with ever-increasing wonder and delight.

Modern beekeeping, influenced by new technologies and breeding methods, has increased honey production but left bee colonies weak and vulnerable to disease. With the alarming decline of the bee population raising concerns about an impending ecological crisis, many beekeepers are seeking a more sustainable way of caring for bees. Biodynamic Beekeeping is the first book to offer practical instruction on caring for bees using biodynamic theories and methods. By considering the influence of the movement of the stars and the planets on the bees' natural habits, biodynamics encourages beekeepers to be more in tune with their bees indicating, for example, the best days on which to inspect colonies or gather honey. This fascinating book offers beekeepers detailed advice and instruction on how to work more holistically, including: -- the challenges and advantages of breeding queen bees -- how to artificially induce swarming to propagate colonies -- how to use biodynamic ashing techniques to combat varroa mites -- instructions for making winter-feed according to current biodynamic thinking

Beekeeping is about management, control and learning to understand the honeybee. It can also become a very enjoyable and sociable pastime - visiting others' hives and picking up vital hints and tips is all part of the fun - and farming and eating honey that your own bees have produced is a pure delight.Information is given on the basic tools and equipment needed for setting up a hive to detailed advice on when to harvest honey and honey-inspired recipes, from delicious cakes to beauty products. This is an invaluable guide for anyone thinking of keeping bees.

"Buzz is a fascinating reminder of the interconnections between humans and animals, even in that most urban of environments, New York City."--Gary Alan Fine, author of Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction Bees are essential for human survival--one-third of all food on American dining tables depends on the labor of bees. Beyond pollination, the very idea of the bee is ubiquitous in our culture: we can feel buzzed; we can create buzz; we have worker bees, drones, and Queen bees; we establish collectives and even have communities that share a hive-mind. In Buzz, authors Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut convincingly argue that the power of bees goes beyond the food cycle, bees are our mascots, our models, and, unlike any other insect, are both feared and revered. In this fascinating account, Moore and Kosut travel into the land of urban beekeeping in New York City, where raising bees has become all the rage. We follow them as they climb up on rooftops, attend beekeeping workshops and honey festivals, and even put on full-body beekeeping suits and open up the hives. In the process, we meet a passionate, dedicated, and eclectic group of urban beekeepers who tend to their brood with an emotional and ecological connection that many find restorative and empowering. Kosut and Moore also interview professional beekeepers and many others who tend to their bees for their all-important production of a food staple: honey. The artisanal food shops that are so popular in Brooklyn are a perfect place to sell not just honey, but all manner of goods: soaps, candles, beeswax, beauty products, and even bee pollen. Buzz also examines media representations of bees, such as children's books, films, and consumer culture, bringing to light the reciprocal way in which the bee and our idea of the bee inform one another. Partly an ethnographic investigation and partly a meditation on the very nature of human/insect relations, Moore and Kosut argue that how we define, visualize, and interact with bees clearly reflects our changing social and ecological landscape, pointing to how we conceive of and create culture, and how, in essence, we create ourselves. Lisa Jean Moore is a feminist medical sociologist and Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Purchase College, State University of New York. Mary Kosut is Associate Professor of Media, Society and the Arts at Purchase College, State University of New York. In the Biopolitics series

The first descriptive treatise of modern bee management. In a reader-friendly, enthusiastic style, Langstroth addresses every aspect of beekeeping: bee physiology; diseases and enemies of bees; the life-cycles of the queen, drone, and worker; bee-hives; the handling of bees; and many other topics. 25 plates.

PLAY AND LEARN: learn about bees and biodiversity as you play this family strategy game for age 6+, based on traditional Mancala SCREEN-FREE FUN for two players aged 6 and up SOMETHING TO TREASURE: this is a quality product made to last, with bespoke illustration and sleek and stylish packaging EXPLORE THE ENTIRE SERIES: this game is one of our nature games, others include Bird Bingo, I Saw It First! Ocean, and many more Buzz the bees to the flowers to collect pollen and then back to the hive to make honey for feeding and growing your very own bee colony. The player with the largest colony wins! Based on the ancient gameplay of mancala, Beehive Mancala is a fun strategy game for adults and children aged 6+. Includes facts on the bees and flowers featured, plus details on the honey-making process and the importance of bees from the beekeeper at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, UK.