City Wild, and a few of our favorite books!

“The citizen takes his city for granted far too often. He forgets to marvel.” — Carlos Fuentes

Good news! The Land Library continues to work toward opening a Urban Homestead Library in inner-city Denver, along with our second Kids and Educators Nature Library. We’ve been devoting more and more of our resources to find some of the best urban nature books available. These books are wonderful tools, and a powerful remedy for ever taking your home town for granted!

Books such as these, that help you learn about:

BIRDS, BEES…

AND TREES!

NEW NEIGHBORS…

FOOD…

and PLENTY OF FUN PLACES TO EXPLORE!

For the rest of this month, we’ll be featuring many more books on nature in the city — all leading up to the April 27th Colorado premiere of the award-winning film The Legend of Pale Male:

The Land Library is proud to be a co-sponsor of this benefit screening for The Bloomsbury Review, a national literary treasure that has been celebrating and promoting great writing since 1980. We’ll be celebrating two legends that night — The Bloomsbury Review, as it launches into its next chapter, and Pale Male, the famous red-tailed hawk of Central Park, now courting his eighth mate somewhere over midtown Manhattan!

WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, April 27th, 6:30pm at Denver’s Montview Presbyterian Church

For more information on the April 27th premiere, call 303-455-3123, or 800-783-3338, or visit The Bloomsbury Review website!

We hope you enjoy this inspiring film clip!

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Parlez vous francais?

Well, if you don’t speak French, no worries — read on! Recently, a Land Library friend from Quebec donated one of the most remarkable books on bees and beekeeping that we have ever seen. Eric Tourneret’s Le Peuple des Abeilles will always have an honored place on the Land Library’s shelves!

The text may be in French, but Tourneret’s photographs speak volumes. Many of the photos give such an upclose view of the bee’s world that you’d swear Tourneret strapped cameras to the backs of worker bees:

A steady stream of incoming bees, with pollen baskets full.

In some ways our personal inability to read the text liberated us to focus on the incredible patterns of another world:

Eric Tourneret also turns his lens on an equally fascinating creature: the beekeeper:

Le Peuple des Abeilles tells the tale of beekeepers employing both modern and traditional techniques. There are wonderful photo-essays on the capture of wild swarms, and the never-say-die efforts of urban beekeepers — including a few atop the Paris Opera House!

Eric Tourneret has seen a hidden world through his lens, and we’re happy he shared it:

If you don’t speak French, or if you someday hope to speak Bee, you’ll really enjoy this short clip!

Someday we hope a publisher issues an English translation of Le Peuple des Abeilles — but then again, we loved the visual odyssey we’ve been on, ever since Eric Tourneret’s classic book arrived from our generous friend in Quebec!

One of the first pieces the Land Library ever posted was on the great French entomologist, J. Henri Fabre. We have no doubt that he would have loved Le Peuple des Abeilles as much as we do:

–The Insect Man

and for more great books on Bees and Beekeeping, be sure to check our archive!

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A History of Innovation

“Gene Kritsky’s charming book is like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for honey bees. For over 10,000 years, humans have tried to design accommodations for the world’s most useful insect that not only take into account the bees’ remarkably sophisticated behavior but also allow human landlords to help themselves to the products of their industry. Engagingly written and gorgeously illustrated, this book offers a uniquely entertaining and thought-provoking perspective on the longstanding partnership between honey bees and humans.” — May Berenbaum, author of Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs.

Gene Kritsky’s The Quest for the Perfect Hive: A History of Innovation in Bee Culture traces the evolution of hive design from ancient Egypt to the present. Each technological advance is noted and copiously illustrated — from hollowed out log hives and mud daubed cylinders, to the straw skep (in use for over 1,500 years) and Lorenzo Langstroth’s breakthrough innovation: the movable frame hive (pictured below). Even Christopher Wren (architect of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral) came up with his own hive design!

The books and manuals of bee culture are many. Here’s three authoritative tomes from the Land Library’s shelves:

Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee by L.L. Langstroth, The Hive and the Honey Bee, Dadant & Sons, Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture by Ross Conrad

Gene Kritsky sees no end to innovation when it comes to bee culture:

“Today, honey bees are in trouble. These valuable insects, so critical to $16 billion worth of food production, are suffering from mites, diseases, the large-scale use of pesticides, and Colony Collapse Disorder. The history of beekeeping may provide clues that could help beekeepers and researchers as they struggle to save honey bee populations. Beekeepers will have to build upon this history of innovation, of successes and failures, or art and science, if they want to save not just an industry, but a way of life.“

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This Just In: White House Kitchen Garden Wins Second Term

We posted this piece back on May 25th. In the midst of harvest season, and at the end of a hard-fought campaign, we wanted to take another glimpse at Michelle Obama’s new book!

We were prepared to not like this book, thinking it might be a photo-rich, thin-on-substance look at kitchen gardens and healthy food. Well, were we ever wrong! A preview copy of Michelle Obama’s first book just came across our desk, and we’ve spent the morning paging through it. American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America is definitely photo-rich (the images are wonderful, especially the ones with visiting schoolkids), but this book goes into impressive detail chronicling the history of kitchen gardens in America, and tells scores of inspiring stories about contemporary backyard, school and community gardens across the country.

The White House Kitchen Garden is a very visible piece to a larger national effort. In February 2010, Michelle Obama launched Let’s Move!, a nationwide initiative to fight the epidemic of childhood obesity by bringing healthier food into schools and encouraging kids to get outside, and be more active.

American Grown hits the bookstore shelves on Tuesday, May 29th. Spend a glorious Memorial Day weekend planting your own seeds outside, but find time to watch these fun film clips of the White House Kitchen Garden, from its first planting in 2009, through all the subsequent harvests. Then, on Tuesday, storm your local bookstore for a copy of this wonderful book!

Most of you know how much the Land Library loves books on bees, beekeeping, and honey. And so, we couldn’t resist adding this quick clip:

There’s so much good work being done, and so much more to do. The Land Library hopes to establish it’s second Kids Nature Library, this time in inner-city Denver. And we have more than enough books to launch a truly unique Urban Homestead Library for Denver families, gardeners, urban farmers, beekeepers, and the like. Help us make it happen!

For more on White House food initiatives, check out this website with a name you won’t want to forget!

–Obama Foodorama: The Blog of Record About White House Food Initiatives, From Policy to Pie

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A Teachable Moment

The surge of excellent bee book continues! Here’s two of the best, both from Great Britain, and both focused on the special challenges of beekeeping in the midst of busy city life: Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities by Luke Dixon, and Bees in the City: The Urban Beekeepers Handbook by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum.

So, here’s a question inspired by Luke Dixon’s Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities: What would you do if a swarm of bees descended upon your local school??

“Small children and bees might not seem an obvious combination, but at Charlton Manor Primary in Greenwich they get on very well. The bees live in hives in the playground of this inner-city London school….

The headmaster, Tim Baker, took up beekeeping when a swarm came and attached itself to a wall next to the school’s main entrance. ‘There was panic from staff and calls to close the school,’ he recalls. ‘The children seemed very interested though. When it was collected I found out that the bees were very unlikely to sting when they swarm. I realized how little I and people around me knew about bees even though we had always taught the children that they were important. I was concerned that the lessons the children had got from that close-hand observation of the swarm was that bees were something to be feared.’ To dispel the message of fear, Tim set about finding training for himself and interested staff so that they could set up a hive on the school grounds.“

The Next Generation of Beekeepers on Parade:

“There are many flowering plants in neighboring gardens, and there are parks nearby as well, so the bees are not short of forage. As an inner city school many of the pupils do not have access to gardens themselves, so the bees provide an important contact with nature for them….The headmaster is convinced that the bees are of great educational benefit: ‘There are a number of children with behavior issues in the school. They were given the chance to work with the bees. Their behavior has greatly improved and they delivered a talk to the local bee club at its annual general meeting.‘

Somehow, Bees Aren’t as Scary Anymore:

“The school started with one hive, raised queens, and now has two colonies. The honey harvested is bottled by the pupils and sold to raise money for the school.“

As a nice bookend to this story, headmaster Tim Baker reports that another swarm arrived recently and everyone took it in stride. Two of the children helped collect the swarm, and the school’s hives grew by one!

There’s a magic about bees — especially their way of connecting people to the natural world. It’s as simple as that. As long as we’re able, the Land Library will honor these books by giving them a home on our shelves. Here’s two more brilliant bee books we’ve added over the past few months:

The Urban Beekeeper: A Year in the City, the practical diary of Steve Benbow and his 30 beeyard sites spread across London, England, and from our Waterton Canyon Kids Nature Library, The Honeybee Man by Lela Nargi and Kyrsten Brooker. This warm and fun-filled story set in Brooklyn, was listed as a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year.

For many more great bee books, check out one of our past posts:

–Brilliant Bee Books, This Time for Kids

along with our archive of posts on bees and beekeeping!

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The Ultimate Partnership

Consider this: about 75% of all flowering plants rely on pollination to set seed or fruit, and from these plants comes one-third of the human diet. This Monday marks the beginning of Pollinator Week, an international effort to focus on the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations.

Pollinators positively effect our lives and the life of the entire planet. The invaluable ecosystem services they provide are eloquently told in the classic book, The Natural History of Pollination by Michael Proctor, Peter Yeo, and Andrew Lack (originally part of the legendary British book series, The New Naturalists). This well-illustrated book describes all the ways in which pollination occurs: wind, water, birds, bats, insects, even mice.

Over the last few years, there have been many books addressing the worldwide decline of pollinator species, and few better than the Xerces Society Guide, Attracting Native Pollinators. Over eighty species of native pollinators are introduced (including bees, flies, butterflies, wasps, and moths). Detailed instruction is also given on how to create flowering habitat to encourage pollinator populations.

Pollination is an amazingly intricate dance between plant and animal, brought to us by the timeless patience of evolution. Here’s a few more Land Library volumes celebrating this natural everyday miracle of life:

Managing Alternative Pollinators: A Handbook for Beekeepers, Growers, and Conservationists by Eric Mader, Marla Spivak, and Elaine Evans (a full-color guide for rearing and managing bumble bees, leafcutter bees, and other species that provide pollination alternatives to the declining honey bee), and The Forgotten Pollinators by Stephen L. Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan, a now-classic book that was among the first to focus on the importance of a wide diversity of pollinators: bees, beetles, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, bats, and many more.

Sherian Wright has written an excellent guide to one such alternative pollinator, full of tips on how to create a friendly habitat that will encourage the mason bee’s free services:

Mason Bees for the Backyard Gardener by Sherian A. Wright.

There’s many ways to celebrate Pollinator Week, and many ways to support their survival throughout the year. Here’s one way that we especially love — a San Francisco neighborhood that transformed a vacant city lot into a Pollinator Garden:

For much more on the positive contributions of pollinators, please visit the very informative Pollinator Partnership website, where you can download or order:

Bee Basics: An Introduction to Our Native Bees by Beatriz Moissett and Stephen Buchmann. This slender 40-page booklet is one of the best introductions we’ve seen to the hidden world of North America’s native bees. Beautifully illustrated too!

A great week to take time to learn more — and to find ways you can help our pollinator partners!

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From Policy to Pie: Kitchen Gardens in America

We were prepared to not like this book, thinking it might be a photo-rich, thin-on-substance look at kitchen gardens and healthy food. Well, were we ever wrong! A preview copy of Michelle Obama’s first book just came across our desk, and we’ve spent the morning paging through it. American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America is definitely photo-rich (the images are wonderful, especially the ones with visiting schoolkids), but this book goes into impressive detail chronicling the history of kitchen gardens in America, and tells scores of inspiring stories about contemporary backyard, school and community gardens across the country.

The White House Kitchen Garden is a very visible piece to a larger national effort. In February 2010, Michelle Obama launched Let’s Move!, a nationwide initiative to fight the epidemic of childhood obesity by bringing healthier food into schools and encouraging kids to get outside, and be more active.

American Grown hits the bookstore shelves on Tuesday, May 29th. Spend a glorious Memorial Day weekend planting your own seeds outside, but find time to watch these fun film clips of the White House Kitchen Garden, from its first planting in 2009, through all the subsequent harvests. Then, on Tuesday, storm your local bookstore for a copy of this wonderful book!

Most of you know how much the Land Library loves books on bees, beekeeping, and honey. And so, we couldn’t resist adding this quick clip:

There’s so much good work being done, and so much more to do. The Land Library hopes to establish it’s second Kids Nature Library, this time in inner-city Denver. And we have more than enough books to launch a truly unique Urban Homestead Library for Denver families, gardeners, urban farmers, beekeepers, and the like. Help us make it happen!

For more on White House food initiatives, check out this website with a name you won’t want to forget!

–Obama Foodorama: The Blog of Record About White House Food Initiatives, From Policy to Pie

Read Full Post »

Brilliant Bee Books, This Time for Kids!

As you might know from recent posts, the Land Library is partnering with the Denver Botanic Gardens on a new Book Club devoted to Bees & Beekeeping. We’ve had a lot of fun looking over all of our bee books, and along the way we realized just how many wonderful books we have for kids on bees, beekeeping, and honey. Here’s more on one of our favorites!

Stephen Buchmann is a beekeeper and a professor of entomology at the University of Arizona. He is the author of two books for adults, The Forgotten Pollinators, and Letters from the Hive: An Intimate History of Bees, Honey and Humankind. Looking to the next generation of naturalists (& beekeepers!), Buchmann has written a fun new book for teens: Honey Bees: A History of Bees and Honey. Actually, this is one of those books that even an adult can greatly benefit from. In less than 200 pages Buchmann gives us an entertaining primer on bees, honey, and the centuries-old traditions of beekeeping.

For a younger audience, there’s Linda Oatman High’s Beekeepers, a lovely picture book about the gentle guidance a grandfather gives to his granddaughter. The young girl accepts the challenges of beekeeping (‘the hum of the bees’ wings grows louder and louder, and my heart races with the sound“), and in the end Grandpa knows he has trained “a fine keeper of bees“.

Doug Chayka’s illustrations have a warm honey glow, and we especially loved his depictions of the bee yard, the wooden hives, the beekeeper’s veiled, long-sleeved overalls, and all the beekeeping equipment, including the metal smoker used to calm the agitated hive.

Some of our favorite shelves at the Waterton Canyon Kids Nature Library are the ones devoted to insects. Kids seem to have an endless curiosity about the world of bugs. Over the years we have tried hard to keep pace with their natural curiosity — especially when it comes to bees! Here’s a few favorite titles from our shelves:

Brilliant Bees by Linda Glaser & Gay Holland, The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci.

Honey in a Hive by Anne Rockwell & S.D. Schindler, How Bees Make Honey by Louise Spilsbury, Honey Bees and Hives by Lola M. Schaefer.

The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe by Loree Griffin Burns (part of Houghton Mifflin’s excellent series, Scientists in the Field).

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A History of Innovation

“Gene Kritsky’s charming book is like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for honey bees. For over 10,000 years, humans have tried to design accommodations for the world’s most useful insect that not only take into account the bees’ remarkably sophisticated behavior but also allow human landlords to help themselves to the products of their industry. Engagingly written and gorgeously illustrated, this book offers a uniquely entertaining and thought-provoking perspective on the longstanding partnership between honey bees and humans.” — May Berenbaum, author of Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs.

Gene Kritsky’s The Quest for the Perfect Hive: A History of Innovation in Bee Culture traces the evolution of hive design from ancient Egypt to the present. Each technological advance is noted and copiously illustrated — from hollowed out log hives and mud daubed cylinders, to the straw skep (in use for over 1,500 years) and Lorenzo Langstroth’s breakthrough innovation: the movable frame hive (pictured below). Even Christopher Wren (architect of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral) came up with his own hive design!

The books and manuals of bee culture are many. Here’s three authoritative tomes from the Land Library’s shelves:

Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee by L.L. Langstroth, The Hive and the Honey Bee, Dadant & Sons, Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture by Ross Conrad

Gene Kritsky sees no end to innovation when it comes to bee culture:

“Today, honey bees are in trouble. These valuable insects, so critical to $16 billion worth of food production, are suffering from mites, diseases, the large-scale use of pesticides, and Colony Collapse Disorder. The history of beekeeping may provide clues that could help beekeepers and researchers as they struggle to save honey bee populations. Beekeepers will have to build upon this history of innovation, of successes and failures, or art and science, if they want to save not just an industry, but a way of life.“

This is the fourth in a series of posts as we prepare for our upcoming Literature of the Land Book Club on Bees and Beekeeping (presented in partnership with the Helen Fowler Library at the Denver Botanic Gardens. For more on the Book Club, click here!

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The Ancient Art of Honey Hunting

Long before the first man-made bee hives, people hunted honey in the wild. Following eight months of field research, Eric Valli and Diane Summer documented this ancient tradition in their beautifully photographed book, Honey Hunters of Nepal.

The sheer cliffs of Nepal is home to the world’s largest honey bee, Apis laboriosa. The Gurung tribesmen ascend rickety bamboo ladders, hundreds of feet high. When they find the wild hives nestled in the cliff walls, they subdue the colonies with smoke, and then, ever so carefully, maneuver the honey-laden combs to the ground.

This surely is an ancient tradition. Some of the earliest evidence of man’s fixation on honey comes from rock art dating to around 13,000 year ago — as captured in Eva Crane’s classic book:

The Rock Art of Honey Hunters. Also above: a photo from The Honey Hunters of Nepal, showing the delicate balancing act the Gurung are so accustom to.

In addition to the Land Library’s more than 100 adult books on bees & beekeeping, our Waterton Canyon Kids Nature Library has many, many volumes on bees, among them are these two wonderfully illustrated books on the ancient art of honey hunting!

If You Should Hear a Honey Guide by April Pulley Sayre, and The Honey Hunters by Francesca Martin

This is the third in a series of posts as we prepare for our upcoming Literature of the Land Book Club on Bees and Beekeeping (presented in partnership with the Helen Fowler Library at the Denver Botanic Gardens). For more on the Book Club, click here!

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