1911. Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, dramatist, essayist and winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose literary career began with the publication of two volumes of poetry. Lack of action, fatalism, mysticism, and the constant presence of death characterize the works of Maeterlinck. The shadow of death looms even larger in his later plays. Although Maurice Maeterlinck was an enthusiastic beekeeper and thoroughly familiar with the life of the bees, he did not intend to write a scientific treatise. The book is not an abstract of natural history but an exuberantly poetic work abounding in reflections, wherein Maeterlinck sets out his philosophy of the human condition. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

1879. Volume Four of Twenty-Three, Riverby Edition. John Burroughs emerged from an obscure boyhood in the Catskill Mountains to write more than thirty books, create the genre of the nature essay, and become the preeminent nature writer of his day. Through his essays in books and popular magazines, John Burroughs taught countless Americans to appreciate nature. Contents: The Pastoral Bees; Sharp Eyes; Strawberries; Is It Going to Rain?; Speckled Trout; Birds and Birds; A Bed of Boughs; Birds'-Nesting; and The Halcyon in Canada. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Insect collectors, breeders, photographers, and other nature hobbyists will find this book useful when searching for the walkingsticks of North America. The masterful camouflage of stick insects intrigues anyone who is fortunate to find and recognize one in the field. This guide provides data on known regions of inhabitation, host plant preferences, and characters to distinguish the various species. Also included are reprints of classic entomological studies on our native stick insects: systematics, natural history, and behavior.

I held the hat while the Deacon brought the board. Then with trembling care we slipped it under, and carefully carried the moth into the conservatory. First we turned on the light, and made sure that every ventilator was closed; then we released the Io for the night. In the morning we found a female clinging to a shelf, dotting it with little top-shaped eggs. I was delighted, for I thought this meant the complete history of a beautiful moth. So exquisite was the living, breathing creature, she put to shame the form and colouring of the mounted specimens. No wonder I had not cared for them!

Originally published in 1917, this is a wonderful early work on beekeeping and contains much information and many photos. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork Contents Include: Beekeeping As An Occupation - How The Colony Is Organized - The Complete Hive - Accessory Equipment - Establishing The Colony - Spring In the Apiary - Summer In The Apiary - Fall And Winter Preparation - Queen Management - Diseases And Enemies - Honey Plants - Packing Honey For Market

1947. An encyclopedia pertaining to scientific and practical culture of bees. Everything a beekeeper needs to know about obtaining and keeping bee hives. The book is an encyclopedia of information and terms on the honeybee. If you keep bees or want to keep bees or simply want to know more about this unappreciated, but vital aid to our modern agriculture, you need this book.

1912. J.H. Fabre, as some few people know, is the author of half a score of well-filled volumes in which, under the title of Souvenirs Entomologiques, he has set down the results of fifty years of observations, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the best-known and the most familiar: different species of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. Contents: The Fable of the Cigale and the Ant; The Cigale Leaves its Burrow; The Song of the Cigale; The Cigale, The Eggs and Their Hatching; The Mantis. The Chase; The Mantis. Courtship; The Mantis. The Nest; The Golden Scarabaeus. Its Food; The Golden Scarabaeus. Courtship; The Field Cricket; The Italian Cricket; The Sisyphus Beetle. The Instinct of Paternity; A Bee-Hunter: The Philanthus Aviporus; The Great Peacock or Emperor Moth; The Oak Eggar or Banded Monk; A Truffle-Hunter: The Bolboceras Gallicus; The Elephant-Beetle; The Pea-Weevil; An Invader: The Haricot Weevil; The Grey Cricket; and The Pine-Chafer.

1916. J.H. Fabre, as some few people know, is the author of half a score of well-filled volumes in which, under the title of Souvenirs Entomologiques, he has set down the results of fifty years of observations, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the best-known and the most familiar: different species of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. This volume contains all essays on the Chalicodomae, or Mason-bees. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

1913. With a Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck. From the Preface: J.H. Fabre, as some few people know, is the author of half a score of well-filled volumes in which, under the title of Souvenirs Entomologiques, he has set down the results of fifty years of observations, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the best-known and the most familiar: different species of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. This volume focuses on the Spider.

1913. With a Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck. From the Preface: J.H. Fabre, as some few people know, is the author of half a score of well-filled volumes in which, under the title of Souvenirs Entomologiques, he has set down the results of fifty years of observations, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the best-known and the most familiar: different species of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. This volume focuses on the Spider.

"We have chosen to ?ll our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." --Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
"Sweetness and Light is the fascinating story of bees and honey from the Stone Age to the contemporary cutting edge; from Nepalese honey hunters to urban hives on the rooftops of New York City. Honey is nature in a pot, gathered in by bees from many different environments--Zambian rain forests, Midwestern prairies, Scottish moors, and thyme-covered Sicilian mountainsides, to name a few. But honey is much more than just a food, and bees are more than mere insects. The bee is the most studied creature on the planet next to man, and it and its products have been harnessed by doctors, philosophers, scientists, politicians, artists, writers, and architects throughout the ages as both metaphor and material.
In colorful, mellifluous language that delights and excites on every page, Hattie Ellis interweaves social history, popular science, and traveler's tales into a buzzing chronological narrative. She explores the mysterious ways of bees, such as how they can make up to twenty-four thousand journeys to produce a single pound of honey, and she takes the lid off the hive to reveal as many as a hundred thousand bees living and working together in total discipline.
Great thinkers throughout the centuries have been inspired by bees, from Aristotle to Shakespeare to Charles Darwin to Frank Lloyd Wright, echoing, at every stage, the wider scienti?c discoveries and philosophical movements that have changed our understanding of the world. The unfolding story of bees also transports us into broader areas of historicalexperience: from the Egyptian pharaohs' elaborate burial chambers in the pyramids, the medieval guilds, the berserk drunken rituals of mead drinking, and the Mormons' epic journey west to candlelight in churches, sealing wax, and feast and famine.
The bee existed long before man; without bees, the planet and its inhabitants would soon begin to die. This small insect, with a collective significance so much greater than its individual size, can carry us through past and present to tell us more about ourselves than any other living creature.

1908. A charming volume on the history, lore and how-tos of beekeeping. Contents: The Ancients and the Honey-Bee; The Isle of Honey; Bee-Masters in the Middle Ages; At the City Gates; The Commonwealth of the Hive; Early Work in the Bee-City; The Genesis of the Queen; The Bride-Widow; The Sovereign Worker-Bee; A Romance of Anatomy; The Mystery of the Swarm; The Comb-Builders; Where the Bee Sucks; The Drone and His Story; After the Feast; The Modern Bee-Farm; and Bee-Keeping and the Simple Life.

Does the insect know beforehand the sex of the egg which it is about to lay? When examining the stock of food in the cells just now, we began to suspect that it does, for each little heap of provisions is carefully proportioned to the needs at one time of a male and at another of a female. What we have to do is to turn this suspicion into a certainty.

The notion has always very generally prevailed that the queen of the bees is an absolute ruler, and issues her royal orders to willing subjects. Hence Napoleon the First sprinkled the symbolic bees over the imperial mantle that bore the arms of his dynasty; and in the country of the Pharaohs the bee was used as the emblem of a people sweetly submissive to the orders of its king. But the fact is, a swarm of bees is an absolute democracy, and kings and despots can find no warrant in their example. The power and authority are entirely vested in the great mass, the workers.

Modern Entomologic book of the early twentieth century by the physicist and botanist Jean-Henri Fabre. He is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology.

1925. The essential genius of this eminent French scientist, Fabre, lies in his ability to humanize a great phase of Nature that has long been a sealed book to the layman. The insect world, to all but the scientist, has always seemed unimportant, uninteresting and hitherto hidden in a maze of technical expressions and technical thought. But with the advent of Fabre another sun has risen to light up this little-known branch of human knowledge and human interest. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

1922. The essential genius of this eminent French scientist, Fabre, lies in his ability to humanize a great phase of Nature that has long been a sealed book to the layman. The insect world, to all but the scientist, has always seemed unimportant, uninteresting and hitherto hidden in a maze of technical expressions and technical thought. But with the advent of Fabre another sun has risen to light up this little-known branch of human knowledge and human interest. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

CONTENTS: The Sacred Beetle The Spanish Copris The Onthophagi A Barren Promise A Dung-Beetle of the Pampas The Geotrupes: The Public Health Minotaurus Typhous The Two-Banded Scolia The Ringed Calicurgus The Old Weevils Leaf-Rollers The Halicti The Languedocian Scorpion

1908. From the Preface: In preparing the following pages the author has been more and more impressed by the fact that for the control of most of the worst insect pests of our staple crops, the farmer must depend very largely upon general methods of farm practice. This being the case, it is essential that he have a correct knowledge of the pest to be combated; such a knowledge of its life history as will make plain the reason for the effect of any given procedure against it. Contents: Injury Done Staple Crops by Insect Pests; Structure and Development of Insects; General Farm Practice against Injurious Insects; Beneficial Insects; Insects Injurious to Grains and Grasses; Insects Injurious to Wheat; Insects Injurious to Indian Corn; Weevil in Grain; Insects Injurious to Clover; Insects Injurious to Cotton; Insects Injurious to Tobacco; Insects Injurious to the Potato; Insects Injurious to the Sugar-Beet; and Insects Injurious to the Hop-plant.

In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country between Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains." Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the American continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt. The outbreaks subsided in the 1890s, and then, suddenly--and mysteriously--the Rocky Mountain locust vanished. A century later, entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood vowed to discover why."Locust" is the story of how one insect shaped the history of the western United States. A compelling personal narrative drawing on historical accounts and modern science, this beautifully written book brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest extinction mysteries of our time.

When Maurice Maeterlinck, with a poet's sensibility and sensitivity, turned his attention to a bee hive, his observations turned into a masterpiece. In "The Life of the Bee," Maeterlinck illuminates the whole life and society of the bee, from the structure of the hive, to the movement and meaning of the swarm, to the role and activity of the queen. "The Life of the Bee" is for all readers curious about a brilliant thinker's mediation on a force of nature that, ultimately, holds lessons about the human race and our universe. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. His plays, prose, and poems touched on philosophy, the natural world, and mysticism.

Now in paperback--a fascinating work of popular science from a world-renowned expert on mosquitoes and a prize-winning reporter.
In this lively and comprehensive portrait of the mosquito, its role in history, and its threat to mankind, Spielman and D'Antonio take a mosquito's-eye view of nature and man. They show us how mosquitoes breed, live, mate, and die, and introduce us to their enemies, both natural and man-made. The authors present tragic and often grotesque examples of how the mosquito has insinuated itself into human history, from the malaria that devastated invaders of ancient Rome to the current widespread West Nile fever panic. Filled with little-known facts and remarkable anecdotes that bring this tiny being into larger focus, Mosquito offers fascinating, alarming, and convincing evidence that the sooner we get to know this pesky insect, the better off we'll be.

Introduces over 300 of the most common species of Orthoptera in this first guide to one of the most abundant, colorful, and ecologically significant insect groups in North America.

Butterflies have always served as a metaphor for resurrection and transformation, but as Sharman Apt Russell points out in this lyrical meditation, butterflies are above all objects of obsession. She reveals the logic behind our endless fascination with butterflies and introduces us to the legendary collectors and dedicated scientists who have obsessively catalogued new species of Lepidoptera. A luminous journey through an exotic world of passion and strange beauty, this is a book to be treasured by anyone who has ever experienced the enchantment of butterflies.