Note: this shopping cart is for downloads of EBooks only.
Print books are available from online sellers.
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X-Star Publishing Company

A note about EBook reader file formats:

MOBI works on Kindle or Kindle apps for smart phones and other devices.

EPub seems to be the standard and allows text to be reformatted to fit the screen so it will flow down the page. You can change fonts and it will still make it work without "pan and scan". Kindle and Kindle apps for smart phones and other devices, seems to be the only readers that do not support it.

PDF will work on most any device and will be formatted just like the book. The disadvantage of that is if you zoom to change the size you have to "pan and scan" in order to read it (scroll) because the words won't wrap as the size changes.

If you need a format I don't have let me know and I'll see what I can do. There are hundreds and I have to set each one up as a different product, so I would like to stick with ones people need.

New Books:

$55

Biological Beekeeping--The Way Back, by Dee and Ed Lusby

Details: Cloth Cover Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 656 pages 113 illustrations.

This book is about how to move from conventional beekeeping methods to a system of natural beekeeping. The content of this book has been available for many years now on Beesource.com. It is offered here in the form of a book. These are Dee Lusby’s methods unedited, in her own words. This is Dee & Ed’s method of getting from mainstream beekeeping methods, back to biological methods. If you have read Dee's material on Beesource.com this is that but arranged as a very nice cloth bound book.

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If you would like to have a copy autographed by Dee Lusby, send a check or money order for $65 ($55 + $10 shipping and handling) to:
Dee Lusby
HC 65 BOX 7450
AMADO, AZ 85645-9636
USA

It is 60 miles to town and Dee only makes it to town twice a month so please allow 3-5 weeks for delivery. USPS deliveries outside the continental US (Hawaii, US Virgin Islands, APO boxes etc.) may take longer.

Hardback: $55:
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Hardback: $55:
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Other Books:

Hardback: $55:
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EBook $29:
EPub: | MOBI (for Kindle): | PDF:

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 676 pages 1-15/16" thick 219 illustrations.

Things to consider:

This book is mostly a rework of what is on my website for free. I don't want you to buy it and be disappointed that there isn't very much new here. You can get it organized in the form of a book and have something more permanent. If you want to see if you like my writing, read my web site first.

This is three volumes in one hardback book. Below you will find each volume separately in paperback. It is divided up as "Volume I Beginning Beekeeping Naturally", "Volume II Intermediate Beekeeping Naturally" and "Volume III Advanced Beekeeping Naturally". The paperbacks below are the same material and even the same page numbering but allow people to buy just a beginning book if they like and then buy more as they advance. So you also should keep this in mind when looking for and buying the book.

Also, this is the same material as you will read here on the web site, so if you have an opinion on the material, please post a review on your favorite bookseller's site, or better, all the ones listed above.

$55

Esta es la versión en español de "The Practical Beekeeper." (Spanish version of The Practical Beekeeper)

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 656 pages 216 illustrations.

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If you've read it in Spanish please leave a review on Amazon.es as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble etc. There is only one review on Amazon.es and it makes several simply false claims about the quality of the printing etc. I ordered one from Amazon.es in case the distributor was shipping something different there and it looks identical to the US version of the Spanish edition. So if you have read the Spanish version and like it, please add some reviews.

$20

This is just Volume one of the above complete book. It is just the "Beginning" section of the book and it's paperback.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 282 pages 44 illustrations.

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Download in EPub format $11:

$20

This is just Volume two of the above complete book. It is just the "Intermediate" section of the book and it's paperback.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 220 pages 68 illustrations.

Download in EPub format $11:

$20

This is just Volume three of the above complete book. It is just the "Advanced" section of the book and it's paperback.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 188 pages 107 illustrations.

Download in EPub format $11:

Hardback: $55:
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Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 674 pages 1-15/16" thick 149 illustrations.

What Huber discovered and wrote about here, laid the ground work for all the practical knowledge we have of bees today. His discoveries were so revolutionary, that beekeeping can be divided in two eras very easily as pre-Huber and post-Huber.

This edition of Huber's Observations by far surpasses any other edition ever printed in the English language. First it has both Volume I and II, while every English edition currently in print that I am aware of is only Volume I of the 1809 edition. which is only a third of the final Huber book. The second volume was published in 1814 in French 5 years after that 1809 edition and contains Huber's research on the origin of wax, the construction of comb, the ventilation of the hive and much more.

Second, it is the best English translation from the original French and the only one I know of that has both volumes. C.P. Dadant, was uniquely qualified to do the translation. Dadant was born in France and French was his first language, yet he spent most of his life beekeeping; and writing and editing beekeeping articles and books in America in English.

Third, all of the English editions currently in print have only 2 plates (if any). Only the previous Dadant edition (1926) had all 14 of the original plates but unfortunately they were only halftones of some old yellow copies and are not very readable. This edition has new scans from a very good condition edition of the original 1814 French of both Volumes of Nouvelles Observations Sur Les Abeilles so these are clearer than any previous edition other than the original 1814 French edition. An additional engraving of Huber's work from Cheshire's book, plus an engraving of Francis Huber from the Dadant edition have been included. In addition, 7 more photos of a museum quality reproduction of Huber's Leaf hive have also been included. All figures have been split out and enlarged and put in the text where they are referred to. Photos of the original plates are included at the back for historic and artistic purposes.

Fourth, to put this book in context I have included a memoir of Huber by Professor De Candolle, a friend of Huber. This gives a bit of background on Huber's life. We have also added all of the "Unedited Letters of Huber" that we could find that were published over the years in the bee journals. These give a lot more of the personality of Huber.

Fifth, the only other edition to come close to this, the 1926 edition by Dadant, was in very small print. This one is 11 point and a typeface that appears to be much larger than 11 point and is very readable.

Here are some of the sources for this edition. The green cloth bound one is the 1926 C.P. Dadant translation. The leather bound ones are the original 1814 French edition of both volumes used to get good reproductions of the plates:

At least a thousand hours of work went into just the plates in this edition. I started out working with the C.P. Dadant version, which is by far the best and the only really complete English translation, but the plates were not good. Here is a typical example of one.

So I purchased a very good original of the 1814 French version where the plates first appeared and they looked like this:

The figures were often out of order and the figure numbers difficult to read, and the background was not clean, so and, after filtering and tweaking in PhotoShop, I cleaned up the background by hand, retypeset the figure numbers and put the figures in sequence and the plate appears in the book now as this:

Then in the flow of the text I put each of the figures where they are referred to at maximum useful size usually on their own page:

$55

Huber's New Observations on Bees, orignal French with updated spelling with unedited letters of Huber and a Bio

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 846 pages 149 illustrations.

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$55

Huber Beobachtungen in Deutsch. Vollständige Ausgabe Band I & II Zweihundertjahrausgabe (1814-2014) (German Edition). Dies ist die alte Übersetzung mit aktualisierter Rechtschreibung.

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 718 pages 148 illustrations.

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$55

Versión española moderna de las nuevas observaciones sobre las abejas Huber

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 611 pages 149 illustrations.

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If you've read it in Spanish please leave a review on Amazon.es as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble etc. You can also email me with feedback if you have suggestions.

$55

Deutsch Sprachversion von "The Practical Beekeeper." (German version of The Practical Beekeeper)

Details: Hardback 6 x 9 in. B&W 588 pages 214 illustrations.

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If you've read it in German please leave a review on Amazon.de as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble etc. You can also email me with feedback.

$42

Beekeeping Mentor in a Book by Donald Studinski

Details: Paperback 8 1/2 x 11 in. Color 248 pages 222 illustrations.

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$20

Nicol Jacobis Die rechte Bienen-Kunst (German).

Das im Jahre 1568 von Nicol Jacob aus Sprottau verfasste Werk "Gründlicher und nützlicher Unterricht von der Wartung der Bienen" gilt als der Beginn der deutschen Bienenliteratur. Es ist Zeuge einer Zeit, in der Bienen von immensem wirtschaftlichen Nutzen waren, da Honig das einzig verfügbare Süßungsmittel stellt. M. Caspari Höffler griff Jacobs Werk auf und publizierte 1614 die erste Auflage eines kommentierten Werkes, "Die rechte Bienenkunst". Es erschienen insgesamt 4 Ausgaben dieses Werkes zwischen 1614 und 1700. Die hier vorliegende zusätzlich von Christoph Schrot überarbeitete Fassung von Höfflers Werk wurde 1660 in Leipzig veröffentlicht. Altertümliche Schreibweisen und Satzstellungen, die das Lesen erschweren, wurden aktualisiert, und Satzzeichen eingeführt. Die Illustrationen stammen aus einer weiteren Ausgabe desselben Werkes, und sind teilweise mit denen in Nicol Jacobs Werk ident.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 299 Seiten 19 Abbildungen

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$15

This book is a result of a lifetime study of the equipment and practices for the production of fine comb honey. It is also the purpose of this book to encourage only the finest quality of comb honey to be offered to our markets.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 158 pages 72 illustrations.

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$55

These men laid the groundwork and worked out the details of practical systems of queen rearing. Pellet did a lot of distilling down of the various systems, which is very valuable, Smith perfected a lot of what Doolittle started. Miller and Hopkins were the queen rearing examples for the beekeeper who just wanted a few good queens for themselves. If you want to raise queens, these books are the place to start.

Details: Hardback. 828 pages 249 Illustrations.

EBook $29:
EPub: PDF:

$17

Practical Queen Rearing is a good overview of most of the queen rearing methods.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 140 pages.

Download in EPub format $7:

$29

The Australasian Bee Manual was probably the most influential book from New Zealand and Australia. Also includes Hopkin's "Forty-two years of bee-keeping in New Zealand" as an appendix as well as Pellet's version of the Hopkins method and, since it was quite different and quite useful, the 1886 Australasian Bee Manual's chapter on queen rearing.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 270 pages.

Download in EPub format $17:

$15

Jay Smith was one of the great beekeepers and queen breeders of all time. There are many queen breeding books by scientists or small-scale breeders, but this is by a beekeeper who raised thousands of queens every year. This is much more applicable to practical queen rearing. This is also a method that does not require grafting, good for those of us who can't see well enough to graft, and does not require the purchase of special equipment, good for those of us lacking in the funds to buy one of the graftless systems on the market. This is a reprint so the old pictures are not the highest quality.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 116 pages.

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Download in EPub format $7:

$15

Queen Rearing Simplified is one of the most popular queen rearing books of all time written by a man who raised a lot of good queens. It is no longer in print, so I am trying to keep Jay's wisdom alive here. There are many queen breeding books by scientists or small-scale breeders, but this is by a beekeeper who raised thousands of queens every year. I think what he has to say is much more applicable to practical queen rearing. This is a reprint so the old pictures are not the highest quality.

Details: Paperback 6 x 9 in. B&W 222 pages.

Download in EPub format $7:

These are all DRM free. Hopefully you will respect that I am trusting you in order to give you the maximum usefulness of the book and that you will not distribute it for free. Thank you for your respect in this matter.

If you want to order these books direct wholesale by the carton (carton size varies) for resale, please contact us at:

Click here for carton sizes and wholesale prices.

Michael Bush

Copyright 2011 by Michael Bush

Bush Bees Home

This page, plus Cleanup of the Huber plates, photos and covers Copyright 2011. by Michael Bush