An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee, and named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or On the Segregation of the Queen/A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King is available as a free download (PDF only) today (April 1st) only and that's no Fool's Joke. Visit the author's site for the PDF download. You'll have to convert the PDF to read it on your Kindle -- it isn't available yet in the Kindle Store.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Free Ebook: Beekeeper's Apprentice
An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee, and named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or On the Segregation of the Queen/A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King is available as a free download (PDF only) today (April 1st) only and that's no Fool's Joke. Visit the author's site for the PDF download. You'll have to convert the PDF to read it on your Kindle -- it isn't available yet in the Kindle Store.
by Laurie R. King is available as a free download (PDF only) today (April 1st) only and that's no Fool's Joke. Visit the 
Monday, March 30, 2009
Free Ebook Coming Soon: Beekeeper's Apprentice
An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee, and named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or On the Segregation of the Queen/A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King will be available as a free download (PDF only) on April 1st and that's no joke. Visit the author's site on April 1st (don't worry, I'll remind you on Wednesday) for the full book or check now for a free sample. If you want to read it on your Kindle reader, you'll have to convert the PDF, or you can still get it in paperback, if you prefer the traditional format.I'll admit, I've nearly bought this book just for the title and cover. However, it also looks like a good story and who can resist Sherlock Holmes studying honeybees?
Synopsis
Sherlock Holmes meets his match in a formidable new enemy -- and his surprising new partner.
In 1915, long since retired from his crime-fighting days, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybees on the Sussex Downs. Never did the Victorian detective think to meet an intellect matching his own -- until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a young twentieth-century lady whose mental acuity is equaled only by her penchant for deduction, disguises, and danger. Under Holmes's reluctant tutelage,
Russell embarks on a case involving a landowner's mysterious fever and the kidnapping of an American senator's daughter in the wilds of Wales. Then a near-fatal bomb on her doorstep -- and another on Holmes's -- sends the two sleuths on the trail of a murderer who scatters bizarre clues and seems utterly without motive. The villain's objective, however, is quite unequivocal: to end Russell and Holmes's partnership -- and then their lives.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Bargain Books and Reviews are moving
In order to let those who are more interested in gardening and beekeeping find the posts for these subjects, I'm moving the Books part of Bees (and Books) on the Knob to it's own blog: Books on the Knob. I'll leave all the book posts here at least thru the end of the year and have already migrated them over to the new site, so nothing will be missing. Make sure to update your bookmarks or RSS feed for the new location, as I'll continue to post my book reviews, info about free and bargain books and book contests around the 'net. Sometime after the first of the year, I'll remove the book only posts (except those that are book on gardening and beekeeping) and will stop dual posting on both sites. Hope to see you there!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Reading about Beekeepers
Unlike the references books of the past few posts, these are all books I'd love to see available on the Kindle. They are essentially memoirs of those who have raised honeybees for a living or as a hobby.
First, two from Sue Hubbell, the well known A Country Year: Living the Questions, which details her life on a 100 acre farm with 200 beehives, and her followup book A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them that has more about beekeeping tasks and when to do them, interspersed with her prose. Both are an honest look at the real work involved in having so many bees. And there is some manual labor in even one hive -- honey is heavy and so are the boxes and frames used for your hive; even bees add to the weight when a hive is densely populated, with a deep hive body full of honey and bees topping 90 lbs (fear not, there are ways to avoid lifting anything this heavy). By the second book, her farm has expanded to 300 hives, with some scattered about on other properties. All in all, it's a good description of a typical sideliner beekeeper, which is the title for those who have grown beyond the hobbyist level, but are not yet considered commercial beekeepers (who migrate their bees around the nation on a constant basis).
For the story of a commercial beekeeper, check out Bad Beekeeping. A young man from Pennsylvania buys a honey ranch, then ends up herding his bees from Florida in the winter (where he raises 10,000 queens) to the badlands of southern Saskatchewan in summer. Covering a ten year span, this is a look at one of the few people who have kept bees across the US-Canadian border.
For those more interested in the backyard beekeeper, look to Fifty Years Among the Bees. Although many of the practices are now outdated, this is a classic in beekeeping.
And finally, this one isn't about beekeeping at all. It's an English horror film that predates (1967) the scares of Africanized bees in the US. Keep this one on hand for those relatives that are convinced your bees are dangerous: The Deadly Bees. No matter how yours misbehave, they'll be a lot tamer than the bees depicted here. Don't confuse this one with The Birds, although the group of that name does make a cameo appearance.
First, two from Sue Hubbell, the well known A Country Year: Living the Questions, which details her life on a 100 acre farm with 200 beehives, and her followup book A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them that has more about beekeeping tasks and when to do them, interspersed with her prose. Both are an honest look at the real work involved in having so many bees. And there is some manual labor in even one hive -- honey is heavy and so are the boxes and frames used for your hive; even bees add to the weight when a hive is densely populated, with a deep hive body full of honey and bees topping 90 lbs (fear not, there are ways to avoid lifting anything this heavy). By the second book, her farm has expanded to 300 hives, with some scattered about on other properties. All in all, it's a good description of a typical sideliner beekeeper, which is the title for those who have grown beyond the hobbyist level, but are not yet considered commercial beekeepers (who migrate their bees around the nation on a constant basis).
, which details her life on a 100 acre farm with 200 beehives, and her followup book 
that has more about beekeeping tasks and when to do them, interspersed with her prose. Both are an honest look at the real work involved in having so many bees. And there is some manual labor in even one hive -- honey is heavy and so are the boxes and frames used for your hive; even bees add to the weight when a hive is densely populated, with a deep hive body full of honey and bees topping 90 lbs (fear not, there are ways to avoid lifting anything this heavy). By the second book, her farm has expanded to 300 hives, with some scattered about on other properties. All in all, it's a good description of a typical sideliner beekeeper, which is the title for those who have grown beyond the hobbyist level, but are not yet considered commercial beekeepers (who migrate their bees around the nation on a constant basis).For the story of a commercial beekeeper, check out Bad Beekeeping. A young man from Pennsylvania buys a honey ranch, then ends up herding his bees from Florida in the winter (where he raises 10,000 queens) to the badlands of southern Saskatchewan in summer. Covering a ten year span, this is a look at one of the few people who have kept bees across the US-Canadian border.
. A young man from Pennsylvania buys a honey ranch, then ends up herding his bees from Florida in the winter (where he raises 10,000 queens) to the badlands of southern Saskatchewan in summer. Covering a ten year span, this is a look at one of the few people who have kept bees across the US-Canadian border.For those more interested in the backyard beekeeper, look to Fifty Years Among the Bees. Although many of the practices are now outdated, this is a classic in beekeeping.
. Although many of the practices are now outdated, this is a classic in beekeeping.And finally, this one isn't about beekeeping at all. It's an English horror film that predates (1967) the scares of Africanized bees in the US. Keep this one on hand for those relatives that are convinced your bees are dangerous: The Deadly Bees. No matter how yours misbehave, they'll be a lot tamer than the bees depicted here. Don't confuse this one with The Birds, although the group of that name does make a cameo appearance.
. No matter how yours misbehave, they'll be a lot tamer than the bees depicted here. Don't confuse this one with The Birds, although the group of that name does make a cameo appearance.
Advanced Beekeeping References
In yesterday's recommendations, I seem to have skipped over the excellent The Beekeeper's Handbook, Third Edition from Cornell University, one of the nation's top research sites for honeybees and developing new varieties of fruit trees (among other things). A book seldom makes a third edition without a lot of sales and in this case, each edition has been updated with the latest research and status of honeybee diseases and pests.
If you are wanting to get more detailed information about honeybees (or their disease and/or parasites), there are some weighty tomes out there to guide you (as well as excellent conferences each year geared towards both beginning and more advanced beekeepers). Two of the best are The ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture: An Encyclopedia Pertaining to the Scientific and Practical Culture of Honey Bees and 21st Century Complete Guide to Bees and Honeybees, Beekeeping, Apiaries, Africanized Honey Bees - USDA Government Research, Parasites, Mites, Pathogens, Threats to Pollination, Food Supply (CD-ROM). The first covers practically every topic you can thing of that pertains to honeybees, while the second specifically deals with the threats your hives.
One that is a little less helpful is A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply. While giving a good overview of what is going on with CCD, which is still being investigated by top researchers around the world, and it's possible consequences, this particular book has a definite political slant. Right now, CCD is a collection of symptoms (a disorder, not a disease); only when the true source has identified will we be able to name the culprit (and find a cure). The prospects of growing food without the european honeybees, an insect that has been cultivated by man for nearly as long as he has farmed, are definitely not all rosy (although roses won't be affected). While rice, wheat and corn (and other grass grains) do not need honeybees to be grown as crops, many other staple foods do: beans (including soybeans), squash, peppers and many more. Alfalfa doesn't need pollination before being feed to cattle, but does use honeybees on fields where seed will be grown for the alfalfa farmers. Canola is another heavily pollinated crop, as are some crops that may not technically need honeybees (the alternate pollinator is in parentheses next to each), but have much higher yields when they are used: tomatoes (wind pollinated, bumblebees in greenhouses), apples (orchard mason bees) and blueberries (some native bees are better suited, but not easily raised in the numbers needed). However, the costs of raising enough of the alternate pollinators (which often have no honey crop to offset costs to the beekeeper) and/or the lower yields of wind pollinated crops will probably mean much higher prices in stores, if the european honeybee were to disappear. It's true that the european honeybee is not native to the US (or many other parts of the world) and that native pollinators do exist (or did) in most areas. The difference is the increased yield that commercial honeybees bring to intensive monocrops and the decline of native pollinators in nearly any area that is commercially farmed (or subject to typical surbuban grass monoculture practices). I'd skip this one for now and instead keep up with the topic in the bee journals (see below) and wait until a treatment is found before worrying too much about laying blame.
An hour long, in depth view of the inner workings of the hive, NOVA: Bees - Tales From the Hive doesn't get into beekeeping, but will provide you and any school age children a fascinating look at what goes on inside the hive.
Last, the second US magazine for beekeepers is the more technical American Bee Journal. Many starting beekeepers skip this one for a while, instead opting for Bee Culture magazine that I mentioned yesterday, but you really can't go wrong with either one (or both - they seldom overlap in their coverage).
from Cornell University, one of the nation's top research sites for honeybees and developing new varieties of fruit trees (among other things). A book seldom makes a third edition without a lot of sales and in this case, each edition has been updated with the latest research and status of honeybee diseases and pests.If you are wanting to get more detailed information about honeybees (or their disease and/or parasites), there are some weighty tomes out there to guide you (as well as excellent conferences each year geared towards both beginning and more advanced beekeepers). Two of the best are The ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture: An Encyclopedia Pertaining to the Scientific and Practical Culture of Honey Bees and 21st Century Complete Guide to Bees and Honeybees, Beekeeping, Apiaries, Africanized Honey Bees - USDA Government Research, Parasites, Mites, Pathogens, Threats to Pollination, Food Supply (CD-ROM). The first covers practically every topic you can thing of that pertains to honeybees, while the second specifically deals with the threats your hives.
and 
. The first covers practically every topic you can thing of that pertains to honeybees, while the second specifically deals with the threats your hives.One that is a little less helpful is A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply. While giving a good overview of what is going on with CCD, which is still being investigated by top researchers around the world, and it's possible consequences, this particular book has a definite political slant. Right now, CCD is a collection of symptoms (a disorder, not a disease); only when the true source has identified will we be able to name the culprit (and find a cure). The prospects of growing food without the european honeybees, an insect that has been cultivated by man for nearly as long as he has farmed, are definitely not all rosy (although roses won't be affected). While rice, wheat and corn (and other grass grains) do not need honeybees to be grown as crops, many other staple foods do: beans (including soybeans), squash, peppers and many more. Alfalfa doesn't need pollination before being feed to cattle, but does use honeybees on fields where seed will be grown for the alfalfa farmers. Canola is another heavily pollinated crop, as are some crops that may not technically need honeybees (the alternate pollinator is in parentheses next to each), but have much higher yields when they are used: tomatoes (wind pollinated, bumblebees in greenhouses), apples (orchard mason bees) and blueberries (some native bees are better suited, but not easily raised in the numbers needed). However, the costs of raising enough of the alternate pollinators (which often have no honey crop to offset costs to the beekeeper) and/or the lower yields of wind pollinated crops will probably mean much higher prices in stores, if the european honeybee were to disappear. It's true that the european honeybee is not native to the US (or many other parts of the world) and that native pollinators do exist (or did) in most areas. The difference is the increased yield that commercial honeybees bring to intensive monocrops and the decline of native pollinators in nearly any area that is commercially farmed (or subject to typical surbuban grass monoculture practices). I'd skip this one for now and instead keep up with the topic in the bee journals (see below) and wait until a treatment is found before worrying too much about laying blame.
. While giving a good overview of what is going on with CCD, which is still being investigated by top researchers around the world, and it's possible consequences, this particular book has a definite political slant. Right now, CCD is a collection of symptoms (a disorder, not a disease); only when the true source has identified will we be able to name the culprit (and find a cure). The prospects of growing food without the european honeybees, an insect that has been cultivated by man for nearly as long as he has farmed, are definitely not all rosy (although roses won't be affected). While rice, wheat and corn (and other grass grains) do not need honeybees to be grown as crops, many other staple foods do: beans (including soybeans), squash, peppers and many more. Alfalfa doesn't need pollination before being feed to cattle, but does use honeybees on fields where seed will be grown for the alfalfa farmers. Canola is another heavily pollinated crop, as are some crops that may not technically need honeybees (the alternate pollinator is in parentheses next to each), but have much higher yields when they are used: tomatoes (wind pollinated, bumblebees in greenhouses), apples (orchard mason bees) and blueberries (some native bees are better suited, but not easily raised in the numbers needed). However, the costs of raising enough of the alternate pollinators (which often have no honey crop to offset costs to the beekeeper) and/or the lower yields of wind pollinated crops will probably mean much higher prices in stores, if the european honeybee were to disappear. It's true that the european honeybee is not native to the US (or many other parts of the world) and that native pollinators do exist (or did) in most areas. The difference is the increased yield that commercial honeybees bring to intensive monocrops and the decline of native pollinators in nearly any area that is commercially farmed (or subject to typical surbuban grass monoculture practices). I'd skip this one for now and instead keep up with the topic in the bee journals (see below) and wait until a treatment is found before worrying too much about laying blame.An hour long, in depth view of the inner workings of the hive, NOVA: Bees - Tales From the Hive doesn't get into beekeeping, but will provide you and any school age children a fascinating look at what goes on inside the hive.
Last, the second US magazine for beekeepers is the more technical American Bee Journal. Many starting beekeepers skip this one for a while, instead opting for Bee Culture magazine that I mentioned yesterday, but you really can't go wrong with either one (or both - they seldom overlap in their coverage).
. Many starting beekeepers skip this one for a while, instead opting for 
that I mentioned yesterday, but you really can't go wrong with either one (or both - they seldom overlap in their coverage).
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