Book Reviews : 41
Melinda’s Bee-Hive, Volumes 1 and 2
Written and illustrated by ST Dempster
Illustrations
I like the tiny poppy image at the bottom corner of each right- hand page. Most of the full- page illustrations are coloured cartoon drawings and work well, except where a blurred photograph is inserted behind a drawing.
Text
The text is in rhyming poem form which is clever and creative but somewhat tiring as there is no variety to relieve the monotony. The contained information mixes fact and fi ction uncomfortably and includes some discrepancies in facts about bee life which are misleading. Verse can be exciting but unfortunately many of the lines are a little long and a-rhythmic, which is irritating.
Layout
The books have glossy outer covers which look and feel good. They are a good size, somewhere between A4 and A5, and easy to handle. The inside pages have a more basic feel with lightweight paper. The overall impression is very colourful, with illustrations occupying each left hand page. An almost blank contents page appears before each section. These seem unnecessary to the text and disrupt the fl ow of the narrative.
Reviews Book
The Principles of Bee Improvement
Jo Widdicombe I read this small book with
There are several pages of drawings to colour at the end of each book and a page of suggested activities, such as drama and modelling. The drawings are fun but sometimes the inaccuracies of size, shape, etc, in relation to the real thing are distracting. The suggested activities are very general, somewhat vague and uninspiring.
The feel of the books is amateurish and unfi nished. However, they could work well with some considerable re-writing and a review of the layout.
Usefulness as a
Teaching Tool There are too many inaccuracies and too much extraneous material for them to be considered useful teaching tools. It is diffi cult to separate
actual facts about bees from fi ctional fl ights of fancy. The ‘Background’ pages, one of which precedes each of the sections, provide factual information and this is useful, if perhaps a little beyond the understanding of the target audience. However, these pages contain several misleading inaccuracies.
Summary Well done for the illustrations.
Well done for the book covers. Beyond this, these books need some considerable tightening up. The verses need revision, as does the accuracy of facts indicated in the text and the comparative drawings. The factual information in the Background introductory pages needs checking with an experienced beekeeper. The layout also needs
improvement and perhaps the weight of paper of the inner pages could usefully be increased to withstand the pressures of young fi ngers? Pamela Todd
Northern Bee Books, 2014, £9.95 each (£12.25 with p&p). ISBN: 978-1-908904-66-9 (Vol 1);
978-1-908904-67-6 (Vol 2). May 2015 Vol 97 No 5
great interest. I can safely say that I found nothing in it with which I disagreed. Having said that, the index could be much better.
Putting that to one side, Jo says nothing that is not true. The demise of feral bees because of varroa has allowed the drones from imported bees to have an even greater effect on our honey bee colonies than before.
My own bees have lost their good temper because nearby beekeepers have introduced Carniolan bees – with exactly the results that Jo describes – bad temper. Then these beekeepers repeat the process when their bees become bad tempered. Repeat your mistakes and you repeat history. When will we ever learn? To continue importing yet
more bees can only continue this state of confusion and yet we carry on doing so. Importing Italian bees brought us acarine, yet we continued to introduce other bees into the UK – and then got varroa. Follow Jo Widdicombe’s advice and improve the bees we have. Adrian Waring
Northern Bee Books, 2015. £11.95 (£14.25 with p&p). ISBN: 978-1-908904-62-1.
www.bee-craft.com
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