I recently finished reading Meditation And The Art Of Beekeeping by Mark Magill so thought I'd write a quick review. I'd not previously heard of the author but he also wrote wrote Why Is Buddha Smiling -I'm guessing the answer probably isn't because Blink 182 named their 1998 album after him, but I've not read it so I can't be certain.. He's a contributor to Tricycle: the Buddhist Review amongst other things, wrote the film Waiting For The Moon, which won an award at the 1987 sundance Film Festival but really doesn't look like my cup of tea, and produced Far From Poland, a 1984 docudrama about Polish exiles from what I can gather -sounds almost as exciting as this blog. He also keeps bees, and meditates.
The first thing that strikes you about this book is the presentation. Leaping Hare Press have given it an attractive textured hardback cover, spared no expense on the quality of the paper and graced it with attractive endpages. Before you start on the contents the the book is already an attractive object in it's own right. A quick look at their back catalogue shows they've produced a number of books on the themes of mindfullness and meditation twinned with other topics such as Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens and The Art of Mindful Gardening. They also market seedbomb kits and a book on the subject for any budding guerrilla gardeners out there. Interesting. I suspect I may be making a couple more purchases there.
Having admired the book I then proceeded to read it. Obviously. Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping is an unusual read. It's a blend of autobiography, philisophy, history, observations, advice and information, interepersed with extracts from beekeeping texts,poems, plays, philosophical and religious texts from various Dalai Lamas, Shakespeare, Reverend Langstroth, Virgil, Emily Dickinson, Lao Tzu and Buddha amongst others.
Magil writes with a laidback easygoing style -just as you could reasonably expect from a proponent of meditation. He also keeps it interesting, so much so that I read the whole this cover to cover book in about 4 sessions, that said it's not the longest book in the world, weighing in at 135 generously spaced pages. He explains the ancient practice of 'bee lining' which was how mankind used to locate honey from wild bees -and no doubt something I'll be slipping into an entry about on here at somepoint. He also explains why honey keeps so long and why bacteria and yeast can't live in it. He explains that darker honey has more antioxidants in it than lighter honey which I found particularly interesting given the two very different shades of my harvest. He tells us of a chance meeting with an old beekeeper that led to work. There's an explanation of the bee politics used in colony descision making -yes they had democracy long before we did. He tells us of losing bees over winter and how he has to order new colonies annually -something I'm hoping to avoid but time will tell. There's also the problems of black bears and New York City Health Code's article 161.01.
Something else Magill writes about is Brother Adam's Paradox, quoting the old monk's own thoughts on the topic. Something I'd not heard mentioned anywhere else so far. Since Brother Adam's hybridisation programme which successfully created the Buckfast Bee following the decimation of the United Kingdoms native black bees, by tracheal mite, hybrid bees are now replacing the original breeds of bees all over the world meaning an actual reduction in bio diversity.
The first thing that strikes you about this book is the presentation. Leaping Hare Press have given it an attractive textured hardback cover, spared no expense on the quality of the paper and graced it with attractive endpages. Before you start on the contents the the book is already an attractive object in it's own right. A quick look at their back catalogue shows they've produced a number of books on the themes of mindfullness and meditation twinned with other topics such as Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens and The Art of Mindful Gardening. They also market seedbomb kits and a book on the subject for any budding guerrilla gardeners out there. Interesting. I suspect I may be making a couple more purchases there.
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| Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping |
Magil writes with a laidback easygoing style -just as you could reasonably expect from a proponent of meditation. He also keeps it interesting, so much so that I read the whole this cover to cover book in about 4 sessions, that said it's not the longest book in the world, weighing in at 135 generously spaced pages. He explains the ancient practice of 'bee lining' which was how mankind used to locate honey from wild bees -and no doubt something I'll be slipping into an entry about on here at somepoint. He also explains why honey keeps so long and why bacteria and yeast can't live in it. He explains that darker honey has more antioxidants in it than lighter honey which I found particularly interesting given the two very different shades of my harvest. He tells us of a chance meeting with an old beekeeper that led to work. There's an explanation of the bee politics used in colony descision making -yes they had democracy long before we did. He tells us of losing bees over winter and how he has to order new colonies annually -something I'm hoping to avoid but time will tell. There's also the problems of black bears and New York City Health Code's article 161.01.
Something else Magill writes about is Brother Adam's Paradox, quoting the old monk's own thoughts on the topic. Something I'd not heard mentioned anywhere else so far. Since Brother Adam's hybridisation programme which successfully created the Buckfast Bee following the decimation of the United Kingdoms native black bees, by tracheal mite, hybrid bees are now replacing the original breeds of bees all over the world meaning an actual reduction in bio diversity.
As the title suggests the book isn't solely about keeping bees, it's also about meditation. Magill outlines the differences between concentrative and mindful meditation and a little about how to engage in them. However the book isn't really a "how to" for meditation, or in fact beekeeping, so assuming it caught your interest you'd need to do some further study to become proficient in either.
It's hard to say who this book is actually aimed at but I'd say it's interesting read for anyone already interested in keeping bees.
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