Anyone else got this book...

[Vergilius]

A while back my mum said that she had an old bee book which she had inherited from her granny. Well, it never really occured to me to check how old the book was... Until the other day.

It is a "Handy Book of Bees" by A.Pettigrew - it is the fourth edition and was published in 1880!!!

Very interesting stuff... Especially Pettigrew's rants against "new" wooden hives!!!

Was wondering whether anyone knows anything about this book and its author???


Ben P

 

[grahambee]

"Handy Book of Bees"

Free to download here
http://www.archive.org/details/handybookbees00pettgoog

 

[Beezer]

Free to download here
http://www.archive.org/details/handybookbees00pettgoog

Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting from the page or two I have read.

Which one gives a direct download in pdf format please.

 

[justme]

Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting from the page or two I have read.

Which one gives a direct download in pdf format please.

Excellent question.

 

[will]

left click on the http in the the box on the left then a list will come up scroll down to pdf and left click then watch wait for it download in pdf
Will

 

[DanBee]

Very interesting stuff... Especially Pettigrew's rants against "new" wooden hives!!!

Nice find. Some of it sounds eerily familiar:

Of course, everybody loves his own offspring, and likes to see it bear a good name, and be recognised in society. Every invention is a grand affair! Both architect and builder join hands in holding forth an article decidedly superior to all that has gone before! And what was begun in honest effort ends in full-fledged quackery. And hundreds, ignorant of bee science, are induced to purchase these costly hives, which, in their own turn, are found so unsatisfactory, that purchasers think they will never be duped again.

I suspect he wouldn't approve of this...

 

[Silly Bee]

Looks like my BBQ.

 

[BBG]

left click on the http in the the box on the left then a list will come up scroll down to pdf and left click then watch wait for it download in pdf
Will

Thanks v much

 

[milkermel]

I am just about to start reading book I picked up at boot sale called the bee master of Warrilow by Tickner Edwardes. It starts in much the same vien about the modern wooden hives and the such. Looking forward to a good read hopefully!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Very interesting stuff... Especially Pettigrew's rants against "new" wooden hives!!!



Ben P

What did beekeepers use before wood, then, or was there no transition between straw and wood?
Just curious

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

I am just about to start reading book I picked up at boot sale called the bee master of Warrilow by Tickner Edwardes. It starts in much the same vien about the modern wooden hives and the such. Looking forward to a good read hopefully!

There is another book 'Bee-Keeping For All' by Tickner Edwardes, in which he gives plans for the Tickner Edwardes hive. This looks like a Rolls Royce of a hive, with a double skinned brood box (but single walled super). I wonder why it did not catch on.

 

[Headnavigator]

Langstroth's 'The Hive and the Honey Bee' is also available free on line and well worth reading
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24583

 

[justme]

left click on the http in the the box on the left then a list will come up scroll down to pdf and left click then watch wait for it download in pdf
Will

Thanks Will, only just got back to it.

Di:.)

 

[DanBee]

One caution with the old books is that whilst there is a lot of sound advice in them, there can also be some unsound stuff. An example I read recently was Simmins' 'A Modern Honey Farm' from the 1920's - most of it was good (although he's very opinionated) but some of it just didn't translate to modern times. Be wary of treatments involving benzene, for example!

The counter to this is that much of what we think of as modern beekeeping technique was developed between 1850-1900; think of beespace & the moveable frame designs, grafting & queen raising, swarm controls, and umpteen bits of equipment such as smokers and extractors. Some old beekeeping lore is sound, and can be demonstrated so by observation and experiment, but some is mumbo-jumbo I'm afraid. Enjoy the journey, though.

 

[Vergilius]

What did beekeepers use before wood, then, or was there no transition between straw and wood?
Just curious

Pettigrew advocated straw although he write the book in the transition period.


Ben P

 

[Vergilius]

but some is mumbo-jumbo I'm afraid. Enjoy the journey, though.

Yes, couldn't agree more!!! It is very entertaining to read about some of their more "alternative" methods, but don't knock it - Pettigrew talks about yields of 100 lb's plus in pre-OSR days... They must have been doing something right!!!


Ben P