Customer Reviews
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Editor Needed!
Comment: Good book if you can skip over the extraneous bits. Alot of un-necessary information. Author has
interesting story to tell, but when she gets into a whole section about how the bee-keeper
mistakenly painted his house some bright color of pink and there's no connection to bees here, she
loses me. Book is another in my collection of 1/2 read tomes.
Customer Rating: Summary: Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey
Comment: This is one of the best books I have read. Makes me want to get a bee hive for my back yard. Very
interesting facts about bees and honey. Every high school/middle school science class should read
this book. I liked it so much I bought it for friends.
Customer Rating: Summary: How sweet it is....
Comment: Occasionally an engaging book doesn't conform to its title and gains from the misapplication.
Bishop's is such a piece. She blends introspection, scientific inquiry, journalism, and historical
research in a splendid way that the title of her bee book cannot contain. Her varied perspectives
and zoom-lens segues explore not simply the "biography" of honey but also a slice-of-life
examination of a hardworking, seasoned Florida panhandle beekeeper named Don Smiley. In fact, his
good life with his bees is the inspiring story that anchors the book. With her sophisticated
down-home manner, Bishop excels in portraying Smiley's single-minded concern for his bees, his love
for the swamp, and his pride in his Tupelo honey business. With the contrasting gulf of
inexperience in mind, self-deprecating Bishop conveys her own feelings toward her hive-tending
gaffes.
Woven in with the confidence of Smiley and the confessions of Bishop are
fascinating glimpses into bee biology and natural history. From cover to cover this book is filled
with interesting details though there's really no telling where the chapters will go. Bishop
touches upon the nineteenth century innovations and inventions that transformed the global flow of
honey. But then we jump off of an incoming Dutch Gold truck, tour the factory in Lancaster, PA and
learn how honey bear packaging was invented. Our nation's regulation problems with imported honey
are explained. For good measure, we also find out about a variety of products that have more to do
with bees than honey--such as bee venom, propolis, pollen and beeswax. As Bishop's hymn to all
things apian comes to a close, she leaves us with a few recipes, some ancient and some modern.
/> All honey robbers would do well to buy this book--rob your bees but not your local bookstore.
Raise a toast of mead to the author for her fine accomplishment. It's all for the best if the title
of Bishop's book is strained because she has bottled up a sweet, pure product. Salud.
Customer Rating: Summary: Buzzing with Enthusiasm for this Book!
Comment: You know, when I picked up this book, I had no idea I would enjoy it so much. I am researching for
down the line when I buy a house, considering some minor beekeeping in my future and this was
recommended to me by my local librarian (yea librarians!). I'm not sorry I picked this up...it's
written in such an unabashed loving way that one cannot help but be as exited as Bishop and Smiley
about bee's and beekeeping. I was also quite pleased to find an extensive history of bees;
beekeeping, honey, and wax were a part of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the story was
divided between following Bishop as she discovered her own love of beekeeping, her interviews and
following of Smiley on his beekeeping farm in Florida (following his rounds and seasons was very
fascinating and who know it was such hard work), and finally the sections on the history. These
were woven together quite well and as a whole provide the reader with a solid foundation that is
also filled with love and enthusiasm for bees and their honey. I'd recommend it to anyone
interested in doing a little beekeeping of their own (not as a how to, rather as a first step in
becoming more familiar with the process and history of it)...heck, if you like honey, you'll
probably like this book! I'll be adding a copy to my permanent library very soon!!
