The Buzz in Digital Collections

Steenbock Library, in cooperation with UW Digital Collections, is pleased to announce its sweet release of "Historical Bee and Bee-Keeping Literature" from the Charles C. Miller Memorial Apicultural Library.  Newly-digitized as part of this project are 11 serial titles in bee-keeping from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.   

The initial collection of this bee-keeping literature was donated to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1922, with a stipend for its continued support, by enthusiastic admirers of Charles C. Miller who had mentored many a bee-keeper through example and scholarship.  Once housed in Agriculture Hall and then Steenbock Library upon its completion in 1969, many of its texts have since been transferred to the Department of Special Collections where there are descriptive finding aids to the collection.  A list of publications that were documented by WPA workers as part of this collection in 1936 can be found via links from the library catalog. The collection was also featured in an article for the Friends of the Libraries Magazine in 2004. 

Bee a Reader

Of late, Steenbock Library has provided staff and library users an opportunity to observe bee behavior (and specifically, “absconding behavior”, where the colony, pulsating around its queen, moves to a new hive).

How appropriate, then, that the library maintains a collection of titles suitable for apiarists, among other bee culture enthusiasts. A selection of titles includes the following, among many others:

Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture / Ross Conrad

The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us / Bee Wilson

Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping / Dewey M. Caron

If your interest lies in a taste for honey, consider:

Bees and Honey: From Flower to Jar / Michael Weiler; translated by David Heaf

Letters from the Hive: An Intimate History of Bees, Honey, and Humankind / Stephen Buchmann with Banning Repplier

Honey: From Hive to Honeypot: A Celebration of Bees and Their Bounty / Sue Style; illustrations by Graham Evernden.

Speak with your librarians for assistance locating these and other titles.

Of related interest, the Charles C. Miller Memorial Apicultural Library or “Miller Bee Collection” is housed in Special Collections, Memorial Library. Most titles are listed in the MadCat catalog and some have been digitized. A list of titles in the Miller Bee Collection is also made available in Special Collections.

Note: For anyone alarmed by photo, above, and concerns for safety approaching the library building, campus experts are notified of these events and dispatched to collect bees—with cautionary tape to conserve area and to redirect those approaching the building to an alternative route.