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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £5.85
Author:
Alison Benjamin, Brian McCallum
By David & Charles Publishers
 Excellent book for someone considering beekeeping, 2008-06-11
I bought this book knowing virtually nothing about bees (they exist, they live in hives and they make honey was about the sum total of my knowledge).
I have been considering keeping bees for a while and thought that a little reading would help guide me to a decision.
From memory, the book covers: types of bees (not just honey bees), types of hives, the gear required by the beekeeper, where bee hives can be situated, how bees can be purchased, the maintenance of the colony & hive, pests and how to mitigate their impact, the social structure of the bee colony, the way honey is produced by the bees, the 'swarming' of bees, how to harvest honey from the hive and how to store the harvested honey. There's definitely more - my memory just isn't good enough.
The book material is pitched at the level of the layman/novice. In particular areas the book is usefully pratical and in-depth e.g. There are guides to setting up the hive and putting in the colony, checking the colony's health after setting up your apiary, harvesting the honey, controlling swarming and spring-cleaning the hive. There are also little practical tips throughout that will obviously help you avoid common mistakes e.g. Approach your hive from the side, approaching the front entrance will only wind-up your bees!
To sum up. I thought the book was excellent and was written at exactly the right level for someone in my position. It increased my knowledge greatly (admittedly i started with none), it informed me that i have a more-than-reasonable environment for a hive, it convinced me that i'd be capable of performing the duties required to keep the bees happy and healthy, it told me how to go about performing the duties required, it told me what equipment i'd need to keep bees and finally it was a thoroughly pleasant read into the bargain.
List Price: £30.00
Our Price: £42.97
By OUP Oxford
Superb, but understand what it's not, 2006-06-21
This is a major reference work. Whatever they say it's not a light-weight book designed to be pretty or field portable. M.G. Pennington's review is excellent, just beware the newcommer that this is 100% NOT the book you use outside when trying to identify the fluttering thing you are looking at. Get another book for that (I vote Tom Tolman's work for that). This is for understanding what that fluttering thing you have already identified was all about, or where you might hope to meet a particular type of butterfly. Invaluable. There has also been at least one update published on the butterfly conservation website, though I think that's since become a book in its own right. If you have any possible interest in butterflies, get a decent field guide and get this book. You'll unlikely ever need anything else on the subject unless you gain a really deep interest.
List Price: £22.50
Our Price: £22.50
Author:
Barry Goater BSc MIBiol
By Harley Books
 Barry Goater's Pyralid Moths, 2000-11-16
For anyone who is relatively new to moths (and like me has thus far concentrated on the 'macros') this book makes an excellent first purchase when venturing into the world of the 'micros'. The text is clear and well laid out and the photographs give excellent quality images of the whole group. I feel that compared to 'Skinner' (which handles the 'macros' excellently) it is not as good in terms of value for money (Goater describes 208 species and Skinner approximately 850) but this is really the only work of it's kind. The value for money aspect is the only reason in my opinion that the book receives 4 and not 5 stars.For those wishing to become more involved, there is adequate reference to identification from genitalia examination where appropriate and the confusing issue of what is and what is not a 'micro' is also addressed. Overall an excellent book and well worth buying.
List Price: £32.99
Our Price: £28.04
Author:
George C. McGavin
By OUP Oxford
Essential Entomology: An Order-by-order Introduction, 2008-04-20
Professor McGavin was one of my guest lectures when i studied Zoology at university and he was amazing. He has such a passion for entomology and that is radiated from him. This book is great and really helped me when studing entomolgy. He was an advisor on Life in the Undergrowth by David Attenborough and i've seen him on TV a few times too. He's such a great entomologist and i'd strongly recommend this book to anyone.
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £0.01
Author:
Andrew Spielman, Michael D'Antonio
By Faber and Faber
According to Andrew Spielman, a Harvard University specialist in tropical disease and his coauthor of Mosquito, award-winning science writer Michael D'Antonio, no animal on earth has touched so directly and profoundly the lives of so many human beings as the mosquito. Mosquito is their fascinating account for the general reader of the life story of this tiny insect and the havoc it has wrought over the millennia from the Roman soldiers that died of malaria in Scotland to the tens of thousands that died of yellow fever during the first attempt by the French to build the Panama canal at the end of the 19th century. Now the mosquito is back with a vengeance and her pathogens are apparently getting worse, making more people sick and claiming more lives, millions of lives, every year. Mosquito is full of fascinating facts and stories about the amazing variability of the insect. There are some 2500 species of mosquito compared with 4000 species for all mammals. Mosquitoes can survive almost anywhere on land from below sea level in the Californian desert up to 8000 ft in the Himalayas, and Spielman has found the common house mosquito from Harvard in the US to Confuciu...
Good mix of science and storytelling, 2006-07-27
I am sometimes wary of buying books with more that one author, worried that the narriative voice will be all jumbled. Mosquito is well written. It gives you enough gorey details and personal histories to keep you interested and includes some interesting science along the way. Some of the stastics are staggering - the mosquito is responsible for nearly half the deaths of all the people who have ever lived! For me this book embodies so much of what makes good science writing: compelling story telling, hard science and it leaves you with something to think about at the end.
List Price: £4.99
Our Price: £1.13
Author:
Michael Chinery
By Collins
Great Little Book, 2007-01-27
I bought this book when we moved to a new house with a large established garden which seemed to attract lots of butterflies. It has been a great help finding out which ones are which and good fun too getting my daughter involved as well. Great pictures and photographs and an easy to follow method of identifying butterflies and moths. Well worth the small amount of money paid.
List Price: £4.99
Our Price: £1.00
Author:
Michael Chinery
By Collins
An excellent guide, 2006-08-14
No butterflies or moths but there is a separate guide available to cover those groups. This seems a reasonable decision when publishing in a pocket-sized format as a combined guide would mean that only half the number of species could be covered.
The information in the guide is clear and concise with good quality photographs for every entry. There are also illustrations on many entries that clarify those anatomical differences important for identification of the species or sex.
A fascinating guide that's been invavluable for me in my new found hobby of macro insect photography.
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