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Man's domestication of the humble honey bee spans millennia. The evolution of beekeeping may be traced in the changing form of the beehive and in the various structures used to house and protect it, from simple recesses in garden walls holding a single straw hive, to ornate free-standing buildings that could house thirty times as many. Each means was unique…
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The Feminine Monarchie is an early and remarkable work of English natural history, first published in 1609, and written by a scholarly country parson of wide ranging interests. Like the later Gilbert White of Selborne, a distant relation, Charles Butler had a deep curiosity about the natural world and recorded his discoveries methodically, in keeping with the growing scientific mood…
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A hard back facsimile of Butler 1623. Charles Butler (1560-1647), sometimes called the Father of English Beekeeping, was a logician, grammarist, author, minister (Vicar of Wootton St Lawrence, near Basingstoke, England), and an influential beekeeper. He was also an early proponent of English spelling reform. He observed that bees produce wax combs from scales of wax produced in their own…
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Skep-Making by Toon Brekelmans was originally published in Dutch by Cantecleer of Baarn. Skep-Maker David Chubb whose work can be seen regularly at the Royal Show has used the book for years in spite of not speaking the language. The basics are all here and the instructive drawings can be used by left or right-handers. A vital book for all…
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This is the only book to review the history of skep beekeeping, yet at the same time to show how they are madeand managed. As such it joined Pettigrew as an essential text for all those who wish to keep bees in skeps.
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A most wonderful record in words (in Dutch) and pictures of skep beekeeping as practiced in Holland.
