Natural Bee Husbandry

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The Joy of Bees by Paolo Fontana

The Joy of Bees

Bees as a Model of Sustainability and Beekeeping as an Experience Involving Nature and Human History

Paolo Fontana (Paul Tout, Trans.)

£37.50

Category:

BA Project srl – Verona. 1st Eng. ed., 2019
Hardback, 752 Pages
225 × 155 mm
ISBN 978-88-940945-8-9

Description

Paolo Fontana is an Italian naturalist and researcher at the Edmund Mach Foundation in Trento (Italy). President of the World Biodiversity Association, he has also been a beekeeper for more than 30 years. As an entomologist he has taken part in numerous research expeditions, studying the faunas of Mediterranean as well as tropical countries and describing dozens of species new to science. The author of over 240 publications, in recent years he has focused on the sustainability of agricultural ecosystems, the conservation of biodiversity, beekeeping and its associated problems, the natural management of honeybees and their use as indicators of environmental quality.

In this text Paolo addresses these issues. His enthusiasm shows as his thoughts, ideas and explanations pour out through the uncluttered and homely text. Analogies, paraphrases, exaggerated images some taken from great literature others taken from the literature of folk culture, films and television. It bubbles as if he is speaking in his own dialect. It is to the credit of Paul Tout, Paolo’s translator, that even in a different language it has not lost the pace, character and exuber­ance of the language of the author’s beloved Isola Vicentina.

The text can be contentious, it is thought provoking and, at times, debatable but surely that is what makes a good book.

“This book may not suit traditional scientists but it will certainly appeal to beekeepers and to the large sector of the public who are now concerned about our present natural world and the way it is being abused. In other words it has something for just about everyone and everyone would be better informed and hopefully a more thoughtful citizen for reading it.”
Richard Jones, Chairman, The Eva Crane Trust

“In spite of it being a scientific publication, we read it with the same pleasure as a great novel.”
Susanna Tamaro (Italian Novelist)

Contents

1. Natural History of Honey Bees
1.1. The importance of in-depth knowledge of the honey bee
1.2. Insects and humankind
1.3. Insect evolution
1.4. Honey bee evolution
1.5. Honey bee anatomy
1.6. Honey bee sociality
1.7. The hive superoganism
1.8. An introduction to the structure of honey bee society
1.9. The queen bee and sex determination in the honey bee
1.10. We are what we eat - The nutrition of the larvae
1.11. The birth of the queens and the process of swarming
1.12. The fertilisation of the virgins queensThe commencement of egg-laying
1.13. Worker bees and pollen collection
1.14. The succession of roles in worker honey bees
1.15. Forager bees
1.16. Egg-laying in worker honey bees
1.17. The importance of the worker honey bees
1.18. The sting and venom in bees
1.19. Relatedness between worker bees in a given colony
1.20. The drones
1.21. Drone aggregation areas
1.22. Inbreeding and false males
1.23. The extraordinary importance of the drones
1.24. How long bees live
1.25. Honey bee intelligence
1.26. Honey bee sense organs
1.27. Communication in honey bees
1.28. Honey bee dances
1.29. The comb
1.30. Cell dimensions in the comb
1.31. The problem of the large cells in wax foundations
1.32. The function of the various types of cells and the structure of the comb
1.33. More on the form and structure of the combs
1.34. The reason a honey bee society endures
1.35. Complexity in a honey bee colony
1.36. The strategies employed to accumulate abundant stocks
1.37. The apparently excessive stocks in certain honey bee colonies
1.38. Thermoregulation in honey bee colonies
1.39. Reproduction in honey bee colonies: swarming
1.40. Swarming’s sanitary role
1.41. The various phases of swarming
1.42. What happens after swarmingHoney bee nutrition
1.43. How much work does honey cost the honey bee?
1.44. Does a bee collect or produce honey?
1.45. The composition of honey
1.46. Honeydew
1.47. The honey bees microbiota
1.48. How does fertilisation of flowers occur?
1.49. Bee Pollen
1.50. Propolis
1.51. Relations between honey bee colonies
1.52. The genus Apis
1.53. The adaptation of honey bees to their local environment
1.54. Apis mellifera is divided into subspecies and not 'races'
1.55. The honey bee is not a domestic animal
1.56. The subspecies of Apis mellifera
1.57. Genetic variability within the various subspecies
1.58. The fundamental law of life - Biodiversity
1.59. The negative effects of selection carried out by beekeepers
1.60. Buckfast bees
1.61. Local bees and resilience
1.62. Highly-selected super-bees and their associated problems
1.63. Colonies not managed by beekeepers
1.64. Protection of the various subspecies of Apis mellifera
1.65. Honey bee sustainability
1.66. Honey bee enemies
1.67. Some final considerations on the hive superorganism
1.68. The marvels of honey bee biology
1.69. Natural History of Honey Bees
1.70. The importance of in-depth knowledge of the honey bee
2. Honey Bees and Humankind
2.1. The relationship between honey bees and humankind
2.2. Hunting the honey bee
2.3. Bees and the birth of spirituality
2.4. The cult of the female deity in relation to honey bees
2.5. The Wicca religion
2.6. From the Great Mother to the Virgin Mary
2.7. The goddess Reitia of the ancient Veneti
2.8. Honey bees in the mythology of Ancient Egypt
2.9. Honey bees in the sacred books of the great religions
2.10. Honey bees in profane literature
2.11. The honey bee has contributed to the development of human societies
2.12. Apiculture in Ancient Egypt
2.13. The myth of Aristaeus and the spread of apiculture
2.14. The first hives and beekeeping in antiquity
2.15. The regression of beekeeping during the Middle Ages
2.16. The rediscovery of Greek beekeeping using movable combs
2.17. Nomadism or migratory beekeeping in ancient times
2.18. The honey bee as a symbol
2.19. The honey bee as a symbol of peace
2.20. The use of honey bees in warfare
2.21. The honey bee in economic symbolism
2.22. The symbolism of the worker bee
2.23. Honey bees and political ideologies
2.24. The symbolic bees of the Barberini family in Rome
2.25. Honey bees and the French Revolution
2.26. Honey bees in Christian symbolism
2.27. The tradition of 'Telling the Bees’
2.28. The development of scientific research on bees
2.29. Albertus Magnus, Aldrovandi, Muffet and Spinola
2.30. Observation hives
2.31. Honey bees in the Diderot and d'Alabentert Encyclopedia
2.32. The blind observer - Franiçois Huber
2.33. The fight against apicide
2.34. Towards the discovery of the bee space
2.35. Eureka! - Langstroth and the discovery of the bee space
2.36. The invention of the wax foundation
2.37. Hruschka and the invention of the centrifugal honey extractor
2.38. The Italian contribution to progress in beekeeping
2.39. Rearing of queen bees
2.40. The importance of the history of beekeeping
2.41. Electricity and electronics in beekeeping
2.42. "Modern" beekeeping
2.43. What is beekeeping?
2.44. The transmission of knowledge from grandfather to grandchild
2.45. Beekeeping dynasties
3. The Various Forms of Contemporary Beekeeping
3.1. Considerations on the relationship between bees and humans
3.2. My personal discovery of natural beekeeping
3.3. The history of the top-bar hive
3.4. The various styles of beekeeping
3.5. Organic beekeeping
3.6. Steiner's bees - Biodynamic beekeeping
3.7. Permapiculture
3.8. Biodiversity Friendly Beekeeping
3.9. "Conventional" beekeeping
3.10. Natural beekeeping
3.11. The Warré hive
3.12. The bees for biodiversity project and the BF top-bar hive
3.13. The spread of top-bar hive beekeeping in Italy
3.14. The cathedral hive
3.15. The Bepi Morosin Top Grap hive
3.16. How much action needs to be taken in natural beekeeping?
3.17. Swarm hunters - Collecting swarms
3.18. My first experiences with top-bar beekeeping
3.19. Is it necessary to put some wax or a strip of wax foundation?
3.20. Populating a top-bar beehive
3.21. The transfer of natural colonies to top-bar beehives
3.22. The discovery of the structure of natural honeycombs
3.23. The importance of a good start when building honeycombs
3.24. The wax bridges between the combs and between the combs and the hive
3.25. Anomalous construction of the combs
3.26. The need to straighten abnormally constructed honeycombs
3.27. Developmental differences between honey bee colonies
3.28. The dimensions of the cells in natural honeycombs in top-bar beehives
3.29. The need to control the Varroa mite
3.30. Oxalic acid in the control of the Varroa mite
3.31. How much honey does a colony produce in the top-bar hive?
3.32. How much honey can be taken from a top-bar hive and when should it be taken?
3.33. The extraction of honey from top-bar beehives
3.34. The production and extraction of wax in top-bar beehives
3.35. Preparations for winter colonies in top-bar beehives
3.36. The springtime recovery
3.37. When the bees thoroughly clean out the hive in late winter
3.38. Hungry colonies can be aggressive
3.39. Top-bar beekeeping and swarming
3.40. A lot of experience is still needed of top-bar beekeeping
3.41. The possible advantages of a simplified beekeeping
3.42. Apitherapy
3.43. Entomophagy and apiculture
3.44. Beekeeping today must progress, as well as looking to the past
3.45. Beekeeping as a profession
4. The Decline of the Bees and What We Can Do To Stop It
4.1. The survival of bees should interest us as individuals
4.2. Bee decline
4.3. Environmental modifications
4.4. The problem of pesticides
4.5. Climate change
4.6. Bees are an example perfect sustainability
4.7. Honeybees as a possible social and economic model?
4.8. Sustainability also depends on our daily choices
4.9. Planting flowers for bees
4.10. Viticulture and apiculture
4.11. Raising bees as a concrete experience of Nature
4.12. A summary in 40 points of the most salient topics
4.13. The authors semi-serious autobiography
Bibliography
Index of Persons Cited in The Text

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