World Perspectives in Apiculture by Eva Crane

World Perspectives in Apiculture by Eva CraneA collection of fascinating editorials by Eva Crane expressing her views on world perspectives in apiculture. Dr Eva Crane is uniquely equipped to author a book on world perspectives in apiculture. She served as Editor of Bee World, the only truly international journal devoted to the field, from 1950 to 1983, a vital period in the development of apiculture when it grew in stature in various ways: as a cost effective commercial enterprise, as a branch

A collection of fascinating editorials by Eva Crane expressing her views on world perspectives in apiculture.

Dr Eva Crane is uniquely equipped to author a book on world perspectives in apiculture. She served as Editor of Bee World, the only truly international journal devoted to the field, from 1950 to 1983, a vital period in the development of apiculture when it grew in stature in various ways: as a cost-effective commercial enterprise, as a branch of crop husbandry for crop pollination, and as a subject of research. The scale of apiculture also increased greatly in some parts of the world, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where some countries became major honey exporters for the first time.

On Dr Crane's retirement at the end of 1983 from her post as Director of the International Bee Research Association, Karl Showier - a long-term colleague at IBRA - pressed her to publish the Editorials she had written for Bee World, because of the light they throw on wide-ranging aspects of apiculture and apicultural research. IBRA Council wholeheartedly endorsed this action, and the present book was commissioned. Its value is increased by the inclusion of Dr Crane's chapter on apiculture in Perspectives in world agriculture, a volume published in 1980 to commemorate the first fifty years of the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux. This chapter has an interesting summary of the history of Bee World from its foundation in 1919, as well as an account of the development of bee research· during the past fifty years. 

Many of the Editorials presented here are as timely now as when they were written. As well as an assessment of the subject dealt with, some gave a forecast, and we can now compare the forecast with the actual course of events.